Valley International Poetry Festival

Be part of the audience at readings in Mission, McAllen, Edinburg, Elsa, Pharr, Weslaco, Harlingen, Brownsville, San Benito, South Padre Island, and Matamoros, Tamaulpas, (Mexico) in the Rio Grande Valley of deep South Texas!!

VIPF is the only known poetry festival with concurrent readings in two countries!

Paragraphs is proud to be the South Padre Island venue for this international event. I hope some of you can stop by and hear some wonderful poetry read by some talented performers.


Saturday, April 27, Afternoon Workshop: 2:45 to 3:45 p.m.

Workshop by: Katie Hoerth
Topic: Prepping your work for publication—an editor's advice
Note: Open to the public as space allows.


Saturday, April 27, Poetry Readings 3:45—4:45 p.m.

M.C.: Linda Romero
Readers: Lupe Méndez, MaryAnn Escamilla, Katie Hoerth, Linda Romero, Rachel Udow, Edward Vidaurre, José Chapa, Daniel García Ordaz, James (Grizzy) Griswold, Rudy García, Bryan Nichols

Welcome Bikers!!

10th annual Beach N Biker Fest

April 19-21, 2013

South Padre Island, Texas

Start the summer off right with a concert and a good beach read.  Bring in your ticket from any of the Summer Kick-Off Concerts for 25% any purchase at Parargraphs.

Meet the Author Series - Joyce Faulkner

Book signing, discussion and reception with author, Joyce Faulkner

“Windshift”
Saturday – January 19th 1-3 PM

Shirley Maxwell is a troubled young woman facing a complicated personal life, a culture that restricts female options, and a world at war. Yet, together with friends -- Emmie, Delores, and Mags -- she joins Jackie Cochran's Women's Air Service Pilots program (WASP) and participates in the adventure, challenges, and tragedies of the 1940s with determination and courage.

Shirley and her friends know what they are tackling will be hard, but they do it anyway and relish the effort. In the process, they change what is possible in the minds of young girls everywhere.

Lively and moving, "Windshift" inspires and educates. Appropriate for history buffs interested in the World War II era, students of social change, those who love tales of derring do and those who just love airplanes.
My one word description of what this book is about is "Overcoming."

"I began writing to amuse myself when I was a tubby adolescent. I love the whole process -- planning, researching, writing -- and the many hours of editing that turns a lump of clay into a layered, cohesive story. As a reader, I appreciate the work that goes into plotting, characterization, and background. People often ask me if I write about myself. Of course, all authors ideas, thoughts, perspectives appear in their books. I'm in my books by the very topics that I choose to write about." -- Joyce Faulkner

This event is free and open to the public.
Paragraphs On Padre Boulevard, 5505 Padre Blvd. South Padre Island, TX

For information call us at 956-433-5057

World Book Night 1013 - Spreading the love of reading, person to person!

World Book Night is an annual celebration dedicated to spreading the love of reading, person to person.  Each year on April 23, tens of thousands of people in the U.S. go out into their communities and give a total of half a million free World Book Night paperbacks to light and non-readers. The date was chosen because it is the UNESCO International Day of the Book, as well as Shakespeare’s birthday! It was also chosen in honor of Miguel de Cervantes, who died on April 23,1616 (the same day as Shakespeare). In the Catalan region of Spain, the day is celebrated by giving a book and a flower to a loved one.  World Book Night was first celebrated in the UK and Ireland in 2011; in 2012, it was also celebrated in the USA and Germany.
  
The goal of World Book Night is to seek out adult readers wherever they are, in towns and cities, in public settings or in places from nursing homes to food pantries, low-income schools to mass transit, to encourage reading in the adult population, especially those who may not have access to printed books for reasons of means or geography.

The 30 books selected to be given away are:

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
City of Thieves by David Benioff
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
My Antonia by Willa Cather 
Girl With a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier
The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros (also available to be given away in Spanish)
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho (also available to be given away in Spanish)
The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh
The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan
Bossypants by Tina Fey
Still Alice by Lisa Genova
Looking for Alaska by John Green
Playing for Pizza by John Grisham
Mudbound by Hillary Jordan
The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster
Moneyball by Michael Lewis
The Tender Bar by J.R. Moehringer
Devil in a Blue Dress by Walter Mosley
Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life by James Patterson
Population: 485 by Michael Perry
Good Omens by Terry Patchett and Neil Gaiman
The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan
Montana Sky by Nora Roberts
Look Again by Lisa Scottoline
Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith
Glaciers by Alexis M. Smith
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain
Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward
Favorite American Poems; Large Print edition

If you would like to be a book giver you can apply now at www.worldbooknight.org now through January 23, 2013 by providing answers to several questions and picking a book title to give out from the above list. We are excited to again be selected as a book pick-up location.

Dolphin, Baby! - A Paragraphs Pick

Swim with a baby dolphin as he learns to survive — and play — in an engaging story splashed with facts and buoyed by bright illustrations.

Pop! Tail first, head last, Dolphin is born into the blue. He’s brand new, but helped by his mother, he swims up, up, up to take his first breath.

Readers are invited to join the baby calf as he follows his mom and discovers all there is to know about life under the sea, from catching his first fish to learning how to say his name with his very own whistle. Nicola Davies’s lyrical narrative and intriguing facts are accompanied by Brita Granström’s colorful illustrations, pulsing with the energy and movement of dolphins in their natural habitat.

From Kirkus Reviews:

Born tail first, a baby dolphin swims immediately to the surface to breathe, then follows his mother, nursing, learning her call, gradually exploring his world, playing, learning and developing his own personal whistle. Zoologist Davies has long experience writing about nature for young readers. Here, she describes the first six months of a bottlenose calf's life through the story of Dolphin and Mom. A sentence or two of narrative description appears on each page, with additional facts in a smaller, italic text. She chooses appropriate information--appearance, breathing, diving, feeding and communication--and constructs her story to demonstrate the calf's increasing independence. Her facts are accurate, and readers looking for specifics will appreciate the index and page numbers. An afterword identifies the particular species and reminds readers that caring for oceans will help ensure dolphin survival. Granström's acrylic paintings are beautiful. Spreading across two pages, they emphasize the blues of the dolphin's environment. The pink of their rostrums is occasionally and gloriously echoed in the sky.

This is an absolutely beautiful book and will make a wonderful addition to any young person's library.  It will be a great resource providing a child with some additional factual material augmenting the learning experience of any of our Island dolphin watch trips. The additional notes about dolphins, provided in a smaller font, on each page are a helpful tool for parents reading the narrative to the littler ones. And most of all it is just a lovely story with beautiful illustrations.

This book was HIGHLY RECOMMENDED by Amy E. Parker, Lower School Assistant Librarian, The Kinkaid School, Houston, Texas, in her review for Library Media Connection.

Don't Forget to Vote

Early Voting Schedule

Voting will be held at the South Padre Island City Hall, 4601 Padre Blvd., for multiple elections on the designated days and hours below:

For the SPI City Election: October 22 - November 2, 2012 from 8 a.m. to 5p.m. (Note: Extended hours of 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. will be offered Thursday, October 25, 2012 and Thursday, November 1, 2012)

For the Laguna Madre Fresh Water District Election: October 22 - November 2, 2012 and Saturday, October 27, 2012 from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on all days.

For the Cameron County Election: October 22-26, 2012 from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. (Note: One Week Only)

* Cameron County Election Voting will be held in Port Isabel October 22 - November 2, 2012 from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. and Saturday, October 27, 2012 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Bennie Ochoa County Annex Building, 505 Highway 100.

William J. Cobb author of "The Bird Saviors"

The time is finally here. William J. Cobb will be joining us at Paragraphs next Saturday, October 20, 2012, beginning at 1:00pm. We have been looking forward to this event for several months and are pleased with the interest we have received. If you love books and engaging with those talented enough to write them I am sure you will enjoy this event.

Cobb's newest novel, THE BIRD SAVIORS will be featured but we will also have copies of his previous work, GOODNIGHT, TEXAS.

About THE BIRD SAVIORS

When a dust storm engulfs her Colorado town and pink snow blankets the streets, a heartbreaking decision faces Ruby Cole, a girl who counts birds. She must either abandon her baby or give in to her father, whom she nicknames Lord God, and marry a man more than twice her age who already has two wives. She chooses to run, which sets in motion an interlocking series of actions and reactions, upending the lives of an equestrian police officer, pawnshop riffraff, a disabled war vet, Nuisance Animal destroyers, and a grieving ornithologist who is studying the decline of bird populations.

All the while, a growing criminal enterprise moves from cattle rustling to kidnapping to hijacking fuel tankers and murder as events spin out of control in a world in which the social fabric and economic structures seem on the verge of falling apart.

Set in a time of economic turmoil, virus fears, climate change, fundamentalist cults and illegal immigrant hardship, THE BIRD SAVIORS is a visionary story of defiance, anger, compassion and unexpected love, in which a young woman ultimately struggles to free herself from her domineering father, to raise her daughter in the chaos of the New West, and to seize an opportunity to become something greater herself. In this brilliant new novel, William Cobb offers an elemental and timely vision of resilience and personal survival, but—most of all—of honest hope.

Praise for THE BIRD SAVIORS

“A stark modern-day Old Testament story in which the evil that men do is barely balanced by the good that a few manage to achieve. It's a gritty harrowing story set in a dust-blown Colorado town that seems filled with vivid characters. Cobb's expert story-telling compels us forward scene by scene to a final satisfying redemption.”—Kent Haruf

"A novel told with an unexpected and appealing warmth; the characters in The Bird Saviors become increasingly memorable, page by page, and the story pulled me in without hullabaloo or fuss-- this is good, confident storytelling."—Aimee Bender

 About the Author

William J. Cobb is the author of a book of stories and two previous novels, including the critically acclaimed GOODNIGHT, TEXAS. His short fiction has appeared in The New Yorker and many other magazines. He has received numerous awards, including a National Endowment for the Arts grant, a Dobie-Paisano Fellowship, and the Sandstone Prize. He was raised in Texas and currently lives in Pennsylvania, where he teaches in the writing program at Penn State, and in Colorado.

A limited number of autographed copies of THE BIRD SAVIORS or GOODNIGHT, TEXAS will be available for purchase after the event. If you cannot attend the event, but would like a personalized copy of either book, please call us before the event at (956) 433-5057.

Children's Classics

If you are looking for a great book to share with your child, grandchild, class, or library group don’t forget the classics – these stories have withstood the test of time and as adults we still remember them fondly. Many famous authors have written some wonderful classics for children.

Great children’s stories are powerful, imaginative, and memorable; they resonate with readers of all ages and have a lasting and profound impact.

Alice in Wonderland (1865) is usually considered the first successful children’s novel. Before the time of its writing, children were viewed as adults-in-training so few works were written specifically for them. Children’s authors for the next hundred years believed that it was their duty to protect the young. Few writers exposed readers to the harsh facts of life.

Since the 1970s, the trend has been towards the depiction of a grittier realism. Children’s writers have introduced topics such as violence, death, divorce, and abandonment into their stories.

While books by Enid Blyton, Roald Dahl and J.K. Rowling are extremely enjoyable and a lot of fun to read, a good classic also makes you think about life, its challenges, and the courage and determination of its characters tell you how to tackle difficult situations.

Give any of these a try:

The Oz Stories – L. Frank Baum
The Anne of Green Gables series – L.M. Montgomery
Black Beauty – Anna Sewell
King Solomon’s Mines – H. Rider Haggard
The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett
Heidi – Johanna Spyri
Around the World in 80 Days – Jules Verne
The Jungle Book – Rudyard Kipling

And anything by Edgar Allan Poe or Arthur Conan Doyle

If the thought of reading an unabridged classic is too daunting, there are many shorter and simpler versions available. So there is no reason not to get to know those timeless heroes and heroines who live within the pages of great books.

Happy Reading – Let us help you discover a new world, in the pages of a book.

Sign up for Clean Beaches

Thanks to Rob Nixon and all the folks that work so hard to keep our beaches clean and safe for everyone to use.

Change.org|The Proven Petition Site

Since the call for enforcement of our litter laws and glass restrictions at Isla Blanca Park has gone viral, the last couple of days, Judge Carlos Cascos has announced that this subject will be addressed at the County Commissioner's Court meeting on July 5, 2012 at 8:30 AM.

If you care about this issue -- please check out the petition and sigh if you agree and try to attend the commissioner's meeting. There is power in numbers!