Mercer County Library Blog

 Dear Tech Guru, I am addicted to playing Wordle, Heardle, Nerdle, and so many of these other daily -rdle guessing games. Is there an easy way to access them without having to search for them every day on my smartphone's browser? Signed: I Don’t Use a Set Starting Word Hi Starting Word, I, too, am addicted to some of these games and can happily report an easy way to access them every day on both iOS and Android devices. For both operating systems, you have the option to save websites to the home screen. It's like bookmarking the page so you can quickly return to that website. This creates an icon on your device's home screen that you can tap on, like an app. You then can group all your games into a folder so you can easily find and access them each day. I do this on my phone in a group/folder called -dles. For iOS devices : To save a website to your home screen, click on the share icon, a square with an arrow pointing out of the top. Scroll down until you see Add to ...

Now that spring is fast approaching and gardeners are planning their gardens, here are some books on vegetable gardening from the Mercer County Library System collection to help you get growing! General guides: These include several books for people with space to cultivate an in-ground garden, for people with outdoor space like a deck or patio, and finally for people who have no access to outdoor space or who simply want to grow food indoors. The following books assume nothing and walk the novice gardener through every step of the process, but are also detailed enough to be of use to the more experienced gardener. Grow Great Vegetables in New Jersey by Marie Iannotti is a well-illustrated, month-by-month, guide to growing vegetables in New Jersey. It begins with a general section on preparing and planting the garden. This is followed by a guide on what needs to be done in the garden throughout the year with sections on planning, preparing an...

The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari If you’re a horror fan and like mainstream horror franchises such as Scream , you may not be aware that some of the greatest horror scares may be found in the oddest, most obscure little corners of the genre. You may want to branch out and find some hidden gems in places you haven’t explored before. March 15 th , 2022 is the 100th anniversary of the premiere of F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu . One of my most vivid childhood horror memories was seeing Max Schrek’s Count Orlock on late night TV. It scared me but also fascinated me because the atmosphere seemed so odd and unreal. That got me thinking about how horror movies and books outside the mainstream can make such a lasting impression. Some of the scariest horror movies that I saw when I was young were the silent horror films. Just because they were so odd and out-of-the ordinary, they had that extra scare factor. Do you wonder how and why those weird silent horror films ...

March 11 th is beloved children’s author and illustrator Ezra Jack Keats’ birthday. This year, 2022, also marks the 60 th anniversary of his Caldecott Medal-winning book The Snowy Day ! Many articles and books have been written about this interesting author/illustrator. Here are just a few highlights that any fan should know. Ezra Jack Keats was born in 1916 as Jacob (Jack) Ezra Katz in Brooklyn, New York, to Polish, Jewish immigrant parents. The Katz family had little money. The dad worked in a coffee shop on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.  Jack liked to draw from the time he was a boy. His father was concerned that this skill would not help Jack find employment that would pay the bills. Jack kept drawing; he was so good that he won a scholarship to go to art school. Tragically, his father passed away the day before his high school graduation and he had to decline the scholarship and work instead. All along, Jack was using his art skills. Even when he enlisted in the army...

Are you an expecting, first-time mom? I am. Are you completely on top of things and ready to go for when baby gets here? If you are, kudos to you. I am truly in awe of you. I am not one of those women. Becoming a mom for me has been a truly daunting experience. The process of getting pregnant, getting through losses if they happen to you, and getting through nine whole months of actually being pregnant is really hard work. I, for one, had no concept of what it would exactly entail. It’s a learning curve. So, if you don’t know it all, be kind to yourself. I think, to differing degrees, we are all learning as we go as first-time moms-to-be. Just an example: did you know that being pregnant can give you a stuffy nose? I certainly didn’t, but the doctor quickly explained my constant sniffle! Here’s another one: did you know that your amniotic fluid tastes like what you ate last? So, if you want your little one to eat that broccoli when they’re older, you may stand a better chance if you ea...