In honor of the Fruits Basket discussion at MC Otakon, I want to share some Chinese Zodiac resources. Find out about your sign!

I also want to note that as of now, this Wednesday's program is full.

Websites after the jump.

Manana Iguana is a Latin birthday nod to the Little Red Hen story "Who will help Me?" Soy Una Pizza provides plenty of songs to party in Spanish. Putumayo's Latin Playground will put mood into the next reading of the book before the return to the Library.

"There once was a baby who hid in a shoe, and had learned how to say, 'How do you do?'" Shoe Baby builds with rhyme and fantasy. Follow your Read-Aloud with flavorful music and dance with your "Shoe Baby". There's Elvis Rock-n-roll in Blue Suede Shoes Elvis Songs for Kids, Children's Songs in Happy Feet, or Jazz era Swing with Fidgety Feet.

Research projects and papers give you a headache? Come learn tips and tricks to help you get organized and stay on course. Call 327-8301 to register for this two-part workshop:

Oct. 25, 7-9 pm Tackling Assignments, Pt 1: Process and Print Sources Downtown
Nov. 1, 7-9 pm Tackling Assignments, Pt. 2: Process, Electronic Databases, Internet, Malletts Creek
Nov. 15, 7-9 pm Tackling Assignments, Pt. 2 [repeat of Nov. 1], Downtown

It's that time of year again: you've made gallons of sauce, sun-dried till they were coming out of your ears, canned a batch for later, and eaten salad after salad, and there are still more tomatoes ripening on the vine. What to do?

Take a look at some of our tomato cookbooks for fresh ideas for the rest of your crop:

The Tomato Festival Cookbook
The Great Tomato Book
Lee Bailey's Tomatoes
Tomato Imperative

(And don't get me started on zucchini!)

The Diane Rehm show Wednesday October 12, 2005 hosted the best-selling author, Judith Viorst. Ms. Viorst takes a poetic and humorous look at the ins and outs of becoming a septuagenarian in her new book
"I'm Too Young to be Seventy" The vast numbers of baby boomers now officially almost 60 may be particularly interested. It seems that group likes to be ready for whatever.

March of the Penguins is a hit at the box office. Why not read more true stories of penguins with your children? Three new titles at the Library are And Tango Makes Three, A Mother’s Journey, and My Season With Penguins.

Grandma Prisbrey raised 7 kids in a trailer home until she finally settled on a scrap of dirt in California. She built her own house out of colorful bottles from the dump, and hand-mixed cement. Enter a true fantasy through the book Bottle Houses and Grandma Prisbrey's Bottle Village.

Hope's Grandpa Jack has passed away. She does not want to go to the funeral for fear that she will never see him again. Aunt Poogee reminds Hope that the people we love are always with us as long as there a memories to share. Blackberry Stew is a soothing read for a child dealing with the loss of a loved one.

Yesterday the National Book Foundation announced the finalists for the 2005 National Book Awards.

The finalists in the four categories are:

Fiction

E.L. Doctorow The March
Mary Gaitskill Veronica
Christopher Sorrentino Trance
Renè Steinke Holy Skirts
William T. Vollmann Europe Central

Non-fiction