Library Programs

Town Mouse, County Mouse Youngsters participate in a bi-weekly story hour with nature and craft activities that alternate between the library and Boxerwood. Each session incorporates books and reading with indoor and outdoor activities. Fall focus: Fairy Folk Winter focus: Birds - nest identification, birding, making seed feeders, beaks, feathers

Survival Book Club

Survival stories and real survival skills are the focus of a new adventure book club for middle grade children. The Survival Book Club meets at Boxerwood from 3:30 to 5:30 on the first and third Wednesdays of each month. Participants should be age 10 or older (grades 5 -8) to participate.

Rockbridge Regional Library staff have compiled a collection of novels that feature young protagonists who find themselves in situations where they must contend with the elements of nature, relying on their inner resources and the resources nature provides in order to stay alive. Book club members read a different novel each month and participate in a fireside discussion led by Glory Knick and Carol Elizabeth Jones from the Regional Library. The books that have been selected are provided to the participants.

Following the discussion, club members head outdoors to learn and practice wilderness survival skills taught by Boxerwood educator Hannah Klein and other outdoor experts from the Rockbridge community. Skills include building fires, identifying and preparing edible food in the wild, building shelters, orienteering, crafting tools, tracking, firing clay pots, making herbal remedies and natural dyes, applying first aid, and signaling for communication. Participants keep a creative journal documenting their survival experiences—literary, real, and imagined.