Many people are gearing up for some serious holiday cooking with Thanksgiving, Christmas, and the numerous holiday parties that are always a must this time of year. Our favorite dishes are cooked to abundance to ensure everyone gets to enjoy each dish. But what do we do when the parties are over, the holidays fade away, and the leftovers pile up? Get creative! Instead of reheating, recreate those favorite dishes into something new and delicious. Here are 10 creative ways to bring life to those leftovers:

1. Salad- Chop that meat up and sprinkle on top of a beautiful bed of greens, dried fruit, croutons, etc. Then finish with a drizzle of your favorite dressing.
2. Soup- Add those veggies and meat to a pot of broth with a bit of seasoning, some pasta or rice, stir, and enjoy!
3. Shepherds Pie- A wonderful traditional Irish dish that welcomes leftovers. Layer a casserole dish with meat and gravy, veggies, and mashed potatoes. Heat, serve, and enjoy the smiles.
4. Hot Open-Faced Sandwiches- Use that sliced meat to make a warm, messy sandwich dripping with gravy. Serve on toast with a fork, knife, and several napkins.
5. Pot Pie- Make a savory pie with meat, veggies, potatoes, and gravy.
6. Potato Cakes- Mash those potatoes, if they aren’t already mashed, add seasoning, and flour to help form a cake. You can even add diced up meat and veggies to add more flavor.
7. Cranberry Smoothie- If, by chance, you have leftover cranberry sauce you can make a refreshing smoothie. Just add plain yogurt, milk, and a straw.
8. Pumpkin Pie Milkshake- Make that pumpkin pie drinkable by putting a slice in the blender along with some of that leftover vanilla ice cream, and milk. Top with whipped cream and you have a delicious new way to enjoy pumpkin pie!
9. Stuffing Waffles- Mix an egg, some broth, and stuffing until moist. Spread onto a hot waffle iron, cook to crispy, and top with some cranberry sauce and an egg.
10. Nachos- Turn those leftovers into something festive! Chips, cheese, meat, and veggies. Or get creative and add stuffing and cranberry sauce.

Alphabet books aren’t just for babies! They entertain both young and old, going well beyond basic letter and sound recognition. They can often have longer descriptions and detailed information about the topic referenced by each letter. These books are a fun way to explore puzzles, art, facts, alliteration, rhyme, humor, fantasy, etc. You can use the alphabet-style book for almost any subject!

Below are some of our favorite alphabet books that spark the imagination, get everyone thinking, and can act as a fabulous springboard to further learning about letters, sounds and words!

Halloween is almost here and Lindenhurst Memorial Library has some spooktacular DVD’s to get you in the mood. Check out this years top 10 Halloween movies that are guaranteed to bring some fright to your nights.

1. The Addams Family (2019)

2. The House with a Clock in its Wall (2018)

Ten-year-old Lewis goes to live with his oddball uncle in a creaky old house that contains a mysterious `tick tock’ noise. He soon learns that his uncle and his feisty neighbor, Mrs. Zimmerman, are powerful practitioners of the magic arts. When Lewis accidentally awakens the dead, the town’s sleepy façade suddenly springs to life, revealing a secret and dangerous world of witches, warlocks and deadly curses.

3. Monster House (2006)

4. Coco (2018)

5. Goosebumps (2015)

6. Room on the Broom (2003)

7. Hotel Transylvania (2012)

8. The Toy Story of Terror (2013)

What starts out as an exciting road trip for the Toy Story gang takes an unexpected turn for the worse following a detour to a roadside motel. After Mr. Potato Head suddenly disappears, his friends find themselves caught up in a hilarious mystery that must be solved before they suffer the same fate in this thrilling story of TERROR!

9. Frankenweenie (2012)

10. The Haunted Mansion (2003)

October is Computer Learning Month! Whether your a master on the computer or a beginner, there is always something you can learn to enhance your computer skills. Computers occupy almost every aspect of our lives from smartphones, laptops, tablets and even cars. We use them for everything and we expect everyone to keep up with all the current technological trends.

Computer Learning Month helps encourage those to “up your game” with classes and tutorials so you won’t be left behind. Here at the library, you can Book A Librarian for a 1 hour one-on-one computer assistance class on anything you need help with. Just check our calendar on our website and reserve your spot today!

The library also has various books on our shelves to help with using your iPhone and iPad, Windows 10, Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and the Internet. If you don’t see what you want, than check MyLibby or Hoopla.

The U.S. National Holiday of Random Acts of Kindness Day is February 17th, but February is a long ways away. And now, more than ever, we need some acts of kindness to brighten our day. So instead of waiting for February, let’s make everyday kindness day!

Random Acts of Kindness bring joy to the receiver and spread positive vibes throughout the community. There are even some good health benefits to being kind! (Science says so!) Spreading kindness can decrease our stress levels along with our anxiety, depression, and blood pressure. It can boost our energy level, make us happier, and prolong our lifespan by 44%! One of the most important things about kindness is that kindness is CONTAGIOUS! Doing just one random act of kindness can create a domino effect and reach thousands.

So get out there and challenge yourself to perform 1 random act of kindness EVERYDAY! You’ll be amazed by the results.

Check out some of these great books and resources that are sure to motivate and inspire:

https://www.randomactsofkindness.org/ : The official website of Random Acts of Kindness. This site has everything you need to get inspired do spread some kindness at home, school, or work.

Check out the day-to-day kindness suggestions for the month of September. Then, click to find the rest of the months.

https://kindness.org/ : This site brings kindness to you and shows you the benefits. It can help educate and inspire you to always be kind.

It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s Superman? No, it’s a Kite!

Kites come in all shapes and sizes and dance through the sky to a music all their own. They are a childhood favorite that leaves a sense of nostalgia in us. But, as we get older we tend to forget how it feels to have the wind on our face, the string between our fingers, and the sense of joy we get as we dare our kite to go higher and higher in the sky.

Kite flying can be fun, relaxing, and benefit your health. In a 2015 article written for the Health Fitness Revolution magazine, kites are said to promote exercise, improve your mental well-being, help with your eye and neck muscles, and boost creativity. So, grab a kite or try your hand at making one with library staff, August 4th. Registration is already in progress. And, don’t forget to check out our some of these great eBooks on kites below. They are a great way to boost your brain power and earn prizes for the Summer Reading Challenge. And who knows, you might find your next favorite!

On May 23rd and 25th we lost two great authors, Eric Carle and Lois Ehlert. Each with their own talents, touched the lives of so many over countless years.

Lois Ehlert entered the hearts of so many preschoolers with her cut-and-paste shape collages that formed beautiful, eye-popping illustrations. Join us in remembering her through the many books she illustrated and authored through the years.

Eric Carle used vibrant colors and familiar things from nature such as a Very Hungry Caterpillar who ate it’s way through our hearts, as well as, 1 apple, 2 pears, 3 plums, 4 strawberries… He will be remembered through the years with the many books he has left us.

Summer is here and so are the bugs! All 983 of them or at least that’s how many live in the state of New York. But in the whole world, there are roughly 10 quintillion bugs!! Here’s what that number looks like in case you were wondering: 10,000,000,000,000,000,000. And, to put that into perspective there are 200 million bugs for every ONE of us!

Carpenter bees drilling holes in our decks and houses, spider crickets hopping into our houses, butterflies flying from flower to flower, ants forming trails to our crumbs, and flies as big as birds are buzzing around our heads. But, as much of a nuisance bugs can be, humans wouldn’t be able to survive on this planet without their help. They do everything from pollinating our crops to cleaning up waste to generating $57 billion in revenue for the U.S. economy. What bugs do for us and the health of the planet is pretty amazing.

Ladybugs are definitely a sight to see and their story is pretty cool too! To discover more fun facts about ladybugs check out these books on Hoopla or check out the MyLibby app or any Suffolk County Library while we are closed for construction.

To get to know more about bees in general, fly over to Hoopla, the MyLibby app, or another Suffolk County Library for these fun books:

For all those other creepy crawlers and the people that study them (entomologists), the shelves of any Suffolk County Library are crawling with them….books that is! Discover the amazing world of bugs with us today!

Have you ever looked at a car and wondered how it works? Or maybe how your toilet works? How about your body? And just how does a plane stay in the air? The world is an interesting place and the things that occupy it are even more interesting. Lucky for you, we have lots of books that explain and describe just how things work! You name it, we’ve got it.  To get you started, here are a few interesting titles for you to choose from.  But there are plenty more on the shelves to satisfy your curiosity.

Beverly Cleary was the most beloved children’s author in the United States and all over the world. Her books have been published in 29 different languages, so children everywhere could enjoy her relatable, humorous, and inspiring stories.

She started out as a children’s librarian and after years of struggling to find books her young patrons could identify with and hearing her young patrons ask: “where are all the books about us?” Beverly Cleary decided she would write children’s books with characters that children could relate to. Characters such as Henry Huggins, Ellen Tebbits, Otis Spofford, Beezus and Ramona Quimby, Ribsy, Socks, and Ralph S. Mouse have delighted children for generations and hopefully more to come. She believed that “kids deserved books of literary quality” and that is exactly what she set out to do when she wrote her first book in 1950, Henry Huggins. Henry Huggins is about an ordinary boy, living an ordinary life with his friends, family, and his dog Rigsby. Based off of Beverly Cleary’s own life as a child and the neighborhood kids she grew up with, Henry Huggins is a delightful story with humorous adventures that any child can relate to.

As a child, I was enamored with Beverly Cleary’s Ramona Quimby books…as was everyone else I knew. She was the first Junie B. Jones! Ramona and her big sister Beezus were first introduced in Henry Huggins in 1950, but by 1955 the two Quimby sisters had their own book and the children were loving it. Then, by 1968 Ramona Quimby debuted in her own book series and Beverly Cleary has been receiving critical acclaim and awards ever since. Another series I enjoyed greatly by Beverly Cleary was The Mouse and the Motorcycle and when it was adapted into a movie…oh boy was I ever excited! I remember watching it over and over again at home and in school. Teachers loved showing this movie in class and they still do!

In her 49 years of writing books, Beverly Cleary has won numerous awards and honors for her books. Awards such as the John Newbery Medal in 1978, ’82, and ’84, the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award in 1975, the National Medal of Arts in 2003, and the 35+ state-wide awards based on votes from her young readers. And in the year 2000, Beverly Cleary was named a Living Legend by the Library of Congress. You can also find tribute to her at, formerly named, Fernwood Grammar School, where she attended as a girl, who officially changed the name in 2008 to Beverly Cleary School. There is a sculpture garden at Multnomah County Library that features statues of her beloved book characters and a Resident’s Hall at University of California named after her.

Although her passing on March 25th of this year was heartbreaking, Beverly Cleary lived a long and plentiful life. She filled the lives of so many children with books about them! She made reading exciting and touched so many. Her stories will live on for generations to come.