Oilfields ideal place to book adventure

The Oilfields High School library is providing an opportunity for adventure for students and their parents this summer.

Those adventures can range from going to the Orange Bowl with Carl Hiaasen to hanging with FDR and the old Bulldog as they strategized for the Second World War.

Hiaasen’s Tourist Season and One Christmas In Washington: The Secret Meeting Between Roosevelt and Churchill That Changed The World by David Bercuson and Holger H. Herwig, are just two of the possibilities at the Oilfields High School Book Sale April 26 and 27.

“The money raised from this book sale will go to the students — creating to the collection of books,” said Oilfields co-librarian Cindy Watts.

The Black Diamond-Turner Valley area has rallied around the fundraiser.

Watts had boxes upon boxes to go through which were donated by the community.

“The community just keeps donating,” Watts said.

“Rather than taking them to Calgary and have them sold, they are saying: ‘I want to bring them here.’”

Like any book sale, the Oilfields event will likely have a glut of Grisham, but also unique and off-beat books like Will Ferguson’s Why I Hate Canadians are just a small sampling of the books on display on Monday as Watts prepared for the sale.

“We are going to have, I would say roughly 5,000 books – I can’t get through the boxes fast enough,” Watts said.

“That’s why I have so many helpers. I am going to start loading the tables up.”

Oilfields has received generous contributions from Foothills Composite High School, which is under modernization, and Strathcona-Tweedsmuir School. A fresh supply of books will be circulated as the sale progresses.

Their will be an assortment of children’s book, young adult books, history, non-fiction, sports, cooking the whole gambit. All will be categorized with the precision and care from a librarian’s craft making it easy for patrons to browse.

“There will be books for kindergarten students to adults,” Watts said. “I’m not holding anything back.”

The library doesn’t hold anything back. The reason libraries are now called learning commons is because they go beyond books these days.

“A library is a centre of a school for learning,” Watts said. “I want the students to know there is more than just these four walls. We started Makers’ Spaces this fall where we had a lady come in and showed how easy it is to knit and sew.

“We had one gentleman come in and took old toys apart and made airplanes out of them.”

The book sale runs April 26 and 27 for the general public. It will be in the afternoon for students.