March just doesn't know what it wants to do, does it?  It is reminiscent of a cat that just wants to do its own thing and will, because it can, just like Socks in one of the following reviews!  Right now (Tuesday morning), there is a rain and sleet storm heading toward our area, but tomorrow the forecast is for snow and plenty of it!  Well, we at the Finley Library have the perfect answer for this and many other situations.  We have oodles and oodles of books from which to choose!  We know there will be one or two that will keep you interested, maybe even keep you enthralled like so many of the books I read.  As I go through the books on the shelves I find so many that I want to read, but guess what?  I've already read lots of them!!!  It is a good thing we have check-out cards in them so we can see if we have already read them!  Now, however, we are going through them to take some of them off the shelves and recycle them in some way.  One way we have used in the past is by selling them at our Open House during Finley Days which we intend to do again this year.  However, we have an addition plan now and the folks in the Citizens State Bank building have been kind enough to offer their facility to help us.  For a month--beginning March 30, 2015, we will have books for sale in the bank building.  They will be on a table to the right of the seating  area as you walk into the bank building.  There will be books available for fifty cents and/or a free will donation.  A container will be available to deposit your money.  No money will be accepted by any employee of the bank.  If this venture is successful, we will be trying other locations as well.  We hope you will find many books that you cannot live without!  And, by the way, if you have books you wish to destroy because they are dirty, moldy or ragged, do not burn them!  They, along with other paper goods, can be recycled at the recycle area in Northwood.

Here's a couple reviews:

Socks by Beverly Cleary.  (HC/RP)  (Youth)  (1973)  Socks is a sweet little story about a lovable, but selfishly cat-like cat that was named "Socks" at birth because of cute little white socks on all four feet.  The children that "own" him and his brothers and sisters know their parents won't let them keep them all so they are trying to sell them in front of a grocery store.  From his mail box adventures to finally finding his own life-time friend, the reader will laugh--even more so if you've ever been lucky enough to be "owned" by a cat!!!!  Nice large print and drawings that certainly re-emphasize to the reader exactly how Socks feels!  Thoroughly fun and enjoyable for any reader!

Pay It Forward by Catherine Ryan Hyde.  (HC/RP)  (1999)  What I thought was going to be a complete "feel good" book didn't pan out that way at all.  I went into it thinking that it would all be wonderful, but then everyone in the world isn't wonderful, so I was being very unrealistic.   However, I wouldn't have missed reading it because it is a great story.  We certainly need some of this "pay it forward" mentality today!   Trevor McKenny at twelve years old receives an assignment--well, an extra credit assignment--from his teacher, Ruben St. Clair, who is a physically and mentally scarred Vietnam Vet.  The assignment said, "Think about how you can change the world.  Put it into action."  So Trevor decided to do this:  Do a very nice thing for three people--something that would be hard for him to do--and ask each of those people to pass it on to to three more people, etc.  The problem, Trevor found, with a plan like this, is that each person never really knows if what they did "worked".  However, he decided, that wasn't really the point.  The point was was to do the good and hard thing and ask those people to "pay it forward" and hope that they did.  Through the course of the book Trevor does just that--gives of himself for the good of three other people.  Did you know there is a Pay It Forward  Foundation?  You can go on line and check it out, but mostly and even better would be to find three people to be nice to--in a really big way!  And tell all your friends and families as well.  And read the book!  After reading it you will want to "pay it forward" and never stop.  It is something we all can do.