Library News

Brian standing in front of his World of Pollination presentation.
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Exploring World Pollinators with Bees in the D!

Last week, the Hartland Home and Garden Club hosted local non-profit, Bees in the D, in the Community Room to discuss pollinators of the world! Learn about Bees in the D, explore amazing pollinators around the world, and learn how we can all do our part to protect our local pollinators.
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Erik making HUGE muscles in front of two Gleaners boxes, with canned and boxed food alongside.
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Join In the Fun! March Matchness Food & Fund Drive

Get ready to have fun and make an amazing local impact with this year's MARCH MATCHNESS food drive competition, running from March 9-27!
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A graphic of an orange cookbook with a measuring cup and a wooden spoon.
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Recipe Club and Potluck: February 2026

From decadent peanut butter cup cheesecake to cozy vegetable casserole and nacho dip, our foodie friends from this month's Recipe Club & Potluck program brought wonderful recipes to share!

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New at Cromaine

The Atlas of World Embroidery book cover.

The Atlas of World Embroidery

A richly illustrated history of embroidery and needlework, showcasing the glorious range of styles, motifs, and materials used around the world

Embroidery is one of the world’s most widely shared forms of creative expression—and one of its most varied and diverse. It can be found in every region, yet its visual languages, themes, and techniques vary greatly: some are marked by unique styles and others show influences from neighboring cultures. The Atlas of World Embroidery examines many distinctive embroidery styles and traditions found across the Americas, Europe, Africa, Asia, and Australasia.

From the quillwork and birch boxes of Indigenous North America to the decorative matyo style of Hungary, the zardozi embroiderers of India, and the satin stitches of Han Dynasty China, Gillian Vogelsang-Eastwood provides a comprehensive history of embroidery, describing its materials and tools, its designs and symbols, and its uses and makers. Emphasizing the visual aspects of embroidery across cultures, the atlas features an unprecedented array of color images celebrating the art form.

Organized geographically by region and country, and focusing on hand needlework with relevant examples of machine forms, The Atlas of World Embroidery is a beautiful and authoritative exploration of this ancient craft.
 

  • Lavishly illustrated throughout in full color with more than 300 images
  • Features full and close-up images of embroidered fabrics, including household items and clothing, along with insightful analysis
  • Includes sections on the Americas; Europe; Sub-Saharan Africa; the Arabic World; Turkey, the Iranian Plateau, and Central Asia; the Indian Subcontinent; East Asia; and Southeast Asia and Australasia—with subsections on individual countries, cultures, and kinds of embroidery
  • Contains a directory of design motifs depicting patterns from around the world
Book cover for "Island at the Edge of the World"

Island at the Edge of the World

"A crisp, confident, and convincing new account of the place and its chroniclers" -- The New Yorker
"A definitive history of the mysteries of Easter Island...compelling...[a] magisterial history." -- New York Times
"Revelatory...fascinating... wholly convincing" -- Daily Mail (UK)
A vital and timely work of historical adventure and reclamation by British archeological scholar Mike Pitts--a book that rewrites the popular yet flawed history of Rapa Nui (Easter Island) and uses newly unearthed findings and documents to challenge the long-standing historical assumptions about the manmade ecological disaster that caused the island's collapse.

Rapa Nui, known to Western cultures as Easter Island for centuries, has long been a source of mystery. While the massive stone statues that populate the island's landscape have loomed in the popular Western imagination since Europeans first set foot there in 1722, in recent years, the island has gained infamy as a cautionary tale of eco-destruction. The island's history as it's been written tells of Polynesians who carelessly farmed, plundered their natural resources, and battled each other, dooming their delicate ecosystem and becoming a warning to us all about the frailty of our natural world.

But what if that history is wrong?

In The Island at the Edge of the World, archeological writer and scholar Mike Pitts offers a direct challenge to the orthodoxy of Rapa Nui, bringing to light new research and documents that tell a dramatic and surprising story about what really led to the island's downfall. Relying on the latest archaeological findings, he paints a vastly different portrait of what life was like on the island before the first Europeans arrived, investigating why a Polynesian people who succeeded for centuries throughout the South Pacific supposedly failed to thrive in Rapa Nui. Pitts also unearths the vital story of one of the first anthropologists to study Rapa Nui, an Oxford-trained iconoclast named Katherine Routledge, who was instrumental in collecting firsthand accounts from the Polynesians living on Rapa Nui in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. But though Routledge's impressive scholarship captured the oral traditions of what life had been like pre-1722, her work was widely dismissed because of her gender, her reliance on indigenous perspectives, and her conclusions which contradicted her historical peers.

A stunning work of revisionism, this book raises critical questions about who gets to write history and the stakes of ignoring that history's true authors. Provocative and illuminating, The Island at the Edge of the World will change the way people think about Easter Island, its colonial legacy, and where the blame for its devastation truly lies.
 

Book cover for "Crave, Cook, Nourish"

Crave, Cook, Nourish

Develop a healthier, happier relationship with food by tapping into these 80-plus nourishing recipes with zero intimidation factor from dietitian, nutrition expert, and TikTok sensation Steph Grasso Dietitian.

The internet is filled with diet fads and nutrition misinformation, and registered dietitian Steph Grasso is here to steer you clear of all of it. In her debut cookbook and nutrition go-to, Steph debunks diet culture and offers up fun and easy ways to make healthy, accessible, and affordable food choices. Crave, Cook, Nourish subscribes to the notion that all bites are good bites when balanced: Why restrict your favorite foods when you can simply add more nutrients to your plate?

Steph lays out the basic building blocks of nutrition so you can make healthful choices with ease. Starting with a brief history of diet culture, Crave, Cook, Nourish is packed with tips and hacks to make grocery shopping and meal prep feel like second nature. Included in the book are more than 80 of Steph's delicious, nutrient-packed, and easy-to-make recipes such as:

  • Viral favorites like Lemony Salmon Orzo and Crack-an-Egg Cups
  • Morning sweet tooth treats like Pumpkin Protein Pancakes with Cinnamony Yogurt and Crispy Banana-Berry Waffle Parfait
  • Balanced snacks to get you through your day like On-the-Go Trail Mix and Bento Box Adult Snack Packers
  • Nourishing mains and sides you'll crave again and again like Cheesy Kielbasa Skillet and Spinach & Artichoke Orzo
  • Doctored-up classics like Gardened-Up Frozen Pizza and Chicken Nugget Veggie Power Wrap


Whether you have a super busy schedule or limited funds, Steph is here to show you how to make easy and attainable healthy lifestyle choices in your own kitchen. Life is hard, and Steph believes that eating a tasty, balanced meal and feeling your best absolutely should not be.