Community Calendar

The Friends of the Franklin County Public Libraries (FFCPL) invite residents and visitors to enjoy free, fun, and educational events for all ages—no library card required! All supplies are provided. These programs foster creativity, learning, and connection in an inclusive environment.

Kaleidoscope Play & Learn:
Kaleidoscope Play & Learn is a fun, development-focused playgroup for children ages 0-5 and their caregivers. It’s a great space for caregivers to connect, build friendships, and explore how kids learn through play. This free weekly play group for caregivers and children will include singing songs, creating arts, storytelling and dramatic play. For more information: jessie.buchanan@elcnwf.org and 850-704-0746.
Date & Time: Every Tuesday - April 1, 8, 15, 22 and 29, at 10:30 am - 12 pm
Location: Eastpoint Branch, 160 Hickory Dip Rd, Eastpoint, FL.

Storytime at the Libraries:
Storytime introduces young children to books, rhymes, music, and activities designed to spark a love of reading. This month’s book, Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs written by Judi Barrett and drawn by Ron Barrett. In this book, life is delicious in the town of Chewandswallow where it rains soup and juice, snows mashed potatoes, and blows storms of hamburgers--until the weather takes a turn for the worse. Attendees will then make a craft. This program is best suited for those 2-6 years old.
Date & Time: Tuesday, April 8, at 3:30 pm ET
Locations: Eastpoint Branch, 160 Hickory Dip Rd, Eastpoint, FL and Carrabelle Branch, 311 St. James Ave. SE (Hwy 98), Carrabelle, FL,

STEM Space: Egg Drop Challenge:
STEM Space at the library provides an interactive environment for exploring Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math. Participants will engage in an egg drop challenge, an engaging way to explore basic scientific concepts and have fun with a hands-on activity. This event is best suited for those ages 8-12 years old.
Date & Time: Thursday, April 10, at 3:30 pm ET
Locations: Eastpoint Branch, 160 Hickory Dip Rd, Eastpoint, FL and Carrabelle Branch, 311 St. James Ave. SE (Hwy 98), Carrabelle, FL.

The Eastpoint Branch is located at 160 Hickory Dip Rd, Eastpoint, FL, 850-670-8151 and the Carrabelle Branch is at 311 St. James Ave. SE (Hwy 98), Carrabelle, FL, 850-697-2366. These programs are supported by the Friends of the Franklin County Public Libraries, a 501(c)(3). For details or to join the Friends, please visit https://friendsfcpl.com or contact your local branch. Funded in part by the Franklin County Tourist Development Council.

The Friends of the Franklin County Public Libraries (FFCPL) invite residents and visitors to enjoy free, fun, and educational events for all ages—no library card required! All supplies are provided. These programs foster creativity, learning, and connection in an inclusive environment.

Kaleidoscope Play & Learn:
Kaleidoscope Play & Learn is a fun, development-focused playgroup for children ages 0-5 and their caregivers. It’s a great space for caregivers to connect, build friendships, and explore how kids learn through play. This free weekly play group for caregivers and children will include singing songs, creating arts, storytelling and dramatic play. For more information: jessie.buchanan@elcnwf.org and 850-704-0746.
Date & Time: Every Tuesday - April 1, 8, 15, 22 and 29, at 10:30 am - 12 pm
Location: Eastpoint Branch, 160 Hickory Dip Rd, Eastpoint, FL.

Storytime at the Libraries:
Storytime introduces young children to books, rhymes, music, and activities designed to spark a love of reading. This month’s book, Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs written by Judi Barrett and drawn by Ron Barrett. In this book, life is delicious in the town of Chewandswallow where it rains soup and juice, snows mashed potatoes, and blows storms of hamburgers--until the weather takes a turn for the worse. Attendees will then make a craft. This program is best suited for those 2-6 years old.
Date & Time: Tuesday, April 8, at 3:30 pm ET
Locations: Eastpoint Branch, 160 Hickory Dip Rd, Eastpoint, FL and Carrabelle Branch, 311 St. James Ave. SE (Hwy 98), Carrabelle, FL,

STEM Space: Egg Drop Challenge:
STEM Space at the library provides an interactive environment for exploring Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math. Participants will engage in an egg drop challenge, an engaging way to explore basic scientific concepts and have fun with a hands-on activity. This event is best suited for those ages 8-12 years old.
Date & Time: Thursday, April 10, at 3:30 pm ET
Locations: Eastpoint Branch, 160 Hickory Dip Rd, Eastpoint, FL and Carrabelle Branch, 311 St. James Ave. SE (Hwy 98), Carrabelle, FL.

The Eastpoint Branch is located at 160 Hickory Dip Rd, Eastpoint, FL, 850-670-8151 and the Carrabelle Branch is at 311 St. James Ave. SE (Hwy 98), Carrabelle, FL, 850-697-2366. These programs are supported by the Friends of the Franklin County Public Libraries, a 501(c)(3). For details or to join the Friends, please visit https://friendsfcpl.com or contact your local branch. Funded in part by the Franklin County Tourist Development Council.

The Friends of the Franklin County Public Libraries (FFCPL) invite residents and visitors to enjoy free, fun, and educational events for all ages—no library card required! All supplies are provided. These programs foster creativity, learning, and connection in an inclusive environment.

Kaleidoscope Play & Learn:
Kaleidoscope Play & Learn is a fun, development-focused playgroup for children ages 0-5 and their caregivers. It’s a great space for caregivers to connect, build friendships, and explore how kids learn through play. This free weekly play group for caregivers and children will include singing songs, creating arts, storytelling and dramatic play. For more information: jessie.buchanan@elcnwf.org and 850-704-0746.
Date & Time: Every Tuesday - April 1, 8, 15, 22 and 29, at 10:30 am - 12 pm
Location: Eastpoint Branch, 160 Hickory Dip Rd, Eastpoint, FL.

Storytime at the Libraries:
Storytime introduces young children to books, rhymes, music, and activities designed to spark a love of reading. This month’s book, Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs written by Judi Barrett and drawn by Ron Barrett. In this book, life is delicious in the town of Chewandswallow where it rains soup and juice, snows mashed potatoes, and blows storms of hamburgers--until the weather takes a turn for the worse. Attendees will then make a craft. This program is best suited for those 2-6 years old.
Date & Time: Tuesday, April 8, at 3:30 pm ET
Locations: Eastpoint Branch, 160 Hickory Dip Rd, Eastpoint, FL and Carrabelle Branch, 311 St. James Ave. SE (Hwy 98), Carrabelle, FL,

STEM Space: Egg Drop Challenge:
STEM Space at the library provides an interactive environment for exploring Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math. Participants will engage in an egg drop challenge, an engaging way to explore basic scientific concepts and have fun with a hands-on activity. This event is best suited for those ages 8-12 years old.
Date & Time: Thursday, April 10, at 3:30 pm ET
Locations: Eastpoint Branch, 160 Hickory Dip Rd, Eastpoint, FL and Carrabelle Branch, 311 St. James Ave. SE (Hwy 98), Carrabelle, FL.

The Eastpoint Branch is located at 160 Hickory Dip Rd, Eastpoint, FL, 850-670-8151 and the Carrabelle Branch is at 311 St. James Ave. SE (Hwy 98), Carrabelle, FL, 850-697-2366. These programs are supported by the Friends of the Franklin County Public Libraries, a 501(c)(3). For details or to join the Friends, please visit https://friendsfcpl.com or contact your local branch. Funded in part by the Franklin County Tourist Development Council.

This is the Florida survival guide you didn't know you needed. Kimball Love is taking us on a journey with her through the ups and downs of living in the Sunshine State through her memoir, Florida Is Not For Sissies​​​​​​!

About Florida Is Not For Sissies:

As much a personal memoir as it is a survivor’s guide, this work embraces an informed, and at times humorous, geography of culture, inherent dangers and disasters-you-can-count-on that define Ms. Love’s beloved Florida. Debunking at least some of the mythology that permeates the pursuit of happiness, or at least retirement here, she takes her task seriously and considers this work a public service as well as a love letter to her native state. This work was created specifically to educate and protect residents and visitors from the physical and social realities that can, and just might, show up with time spent in the Sunshine State.

About Kimball Love:

Kimball Love, a 7th generation Floridian, has devoted the vast majority of her working life to public service. Her diverse career includes stints at The National Geographic Society, Florida-based local, regional and state agencies and as an independent consultant. Her successful projects range from support for K-12 geographic education in several Southern states to managing disaster recovery and economic development programs. In addition, she coordiinated land acquisition and engineering projects for the restoration of the Loxahatchee River and the Indian River Lagoon.

Have you ever wished for the power to change the world around you? A. Marie Cantrelle has the characters you wish you could be in her novel, Lifeshaper.

About Lifeshaper:

Before they disappeared from the world, the Nameless Goddesses bestowed humanity with strange abilities to manipulate the world around them. Now, Princess Kitania Melyora wields a gift unlike any other: the ability to breathe life into existence. But when her control falters at her uncle's investiture ball, tragedy strikes. Hunted by the Emperor and haunted by her fragmented memories, Kitania seeks refuge in a nearby temple. There, she encounters Weiran, a rebel leader with the power to defy death.

He forces her to confront a harsh truth: her own family's tyranny. As betrayal and loyalty collide, Kita must navigate a treacherous path between her past and a future shaped by her family and those she would once call enemies.

About A. Marie Cantrelle:

A. Marie Cantrelle is a speculative fiction author born and raised in southeast Louisiana. Always a lover of the fantastical, she draws inspiration from her upbringing, mythologies of the world, and the occasional dream to bring her characters and worlds to life. Her work explores themes of life, death, and power in all its forms.

These days, she lives in north Florida with two villainous kitties: Selina Kyle and Azula.

“Through figures as various and variously lovely as orange blossom, night herons, stingrays, and dulse seaweed, Furman takes us on a deep-dive tour through Floridian—and, by extension, American—history and its changing environment. This book not only makes me want to go to Florida but also to spend every minute there outdoors, hoping to see with vision as fresh and sweet as Furman’s the world he lives in and loves.”—Nicole Walker, author of Sustainability: A Love Story

Join Andrew Furman and Susan Cerulean as they discuss Furman's book, Of Slash Pines and Manatees.

About Of Slash Pines and Manatees:

Wings and talons clatter against a windowpane. Foxes den under a deck. Pines stand in quarter-acre lots, recalling a vanished forest. In this book, Andrew Furman explores touchpoints between his everyday suburban life and the environment in South Florida, contemplating his place in a subtropical landscape stretching from the Everglades to the warm Atlantic coast.

Transportive vignettes of encounters in the natural world blend with ordinary, all-too-relatable stories of home and family life in these chapters. Puzzled and fascinated by the plants and animals he meets while continually preoccupied by busy domestic routines, Furman illustrates the beauty of his “suburban wilderness.” He also reckons with changes and threats to the surrounding landscape. How, he asks, should humans go about living in what is simultaneously one of the most overdeveloped and most naturally beautiful states in the country?

Of Slash Pines and Manatees is a creative and memorable example for anyone seeking to live responsibly and richly in a world impacted by human activity. Furman inspires readers to focus fiercely on the local, to conduct their own adventures in the ecosystem outside their front doors, and to see that even in the most overdeveloped areas, what is wild persists.

About Andrew Furman:

Andrew Furman is professor of English at Florida Atlantic University and teaches in its MFA program in creative writing. His many books include Jewfish, Goldens Are Here, and Bitten: My Unexpected Love Affair with Florida.

Funding for this publication was provided through a grant from Florida Humanities with funds from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication do not necessarily represent those of Florida Humanities or the National Endowment for the Humanities.

About Susan Cerulean:

Susan Cerulean is a writer, naturalist, and activist based in Tallahassee and Indian Pass, Florida.

Her award-winning nature memoir, Coming to Pass: Florida’s Coastal Islands in a Gulf of Change, was published in 2015 by University of Georgia Press. Tracking Desire: A Journey after Swallow-tailed Kites (Georgia, 2006) was named an Editors’ Choice title by Audubon magazine.

What if you were told that living an ordinary life is exactly where you're meant to be? Join us as Annie Jones, in conversation with Sally Bradshaw, helps us realize that ordinary life is bigger and better than you could imagine with her biography, Ordinary Time: Lessons Learned While Staying Put.

About Ordinary Time:

Annie Jones always assumed adulthood would mean adventure: a high-powered career; life in a big, bustling city; and travels to far-flung places she’d longed to see. But her reality turned out differently. As the years passed, Annie was still in the same small town running an independent bookstore —the kind of life Nora Ephron dreamed.

During that time, she hosted friends’ goodbye parties and mailed parting gifts; wrote recommendation letters and wished former shop staffers well. She stayed in her small town, despite her love of big cities; stayed in her marriage to the guy she met when she was 18; and she stayed at her bookstore while the world outside shifted steadily toward digital retailers. And she stayed loyal to a faith she sometimes didn’t recognize.

After ten years, Annie realized she might never leave. But instead of regret, she had an epiphany. She awakened to the gifts of a quiet life spent staying put.

In Ordinary Time, Annie challenges the idea that loud lives matter most. Rummaging through her small-town existence, she finds hidden gifts of humor and hope from a life lived quietly. Staying, can itself be a radical act. It takes courage to stay in the places we’ve always called home, Jones argues, as she paints a portrait of possibility far away from thriving metropolises and Monica Gellar-inspired apartments.

We’ve long been encouraged to follow our dreams, to pack up and move to new places and leave old lives—and past selves—behind. While there is beauty in these kinds of adventures, Ordinary Time helps us see ourselves right where we are: in the middle of messy, mundane lives, maybe not too far from where we grew up. We don’t have to leave to find what we yearn—we can choose to stay, celebrating and honoring our ordinary lives, which might turn out to be bigger and better than we ever imagined.

About Annie Jones:

Annie B. Jones owns The Bookshelf bookstore in Thomasville, Georgia, and hosts the book review podcast From the Front Porch.