We continue Fiber Arts February at the library with a presentation by Michael Zahs called Iowa History in a Cloth Bag at 3 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 23. Zahs is a Washington County historian and a nationally recognized educator. He taught junior high science and Iowa history for 39 years and continues to teach classes with Iowa Wesleyan College on traveling bus tours. He also does a variety of presentations for Humanities Iowa on local history.

The program on Saturday will explain how the reuse of flour, feed and seed sacks helped Iowans survive the Great Depression and the shortages of World War II. The cloth bags tell the story from relief work by Herbert Hoover to clothes and quilts in the 1950s. Zahs will have a variety of examples to share.

This presentation is free and open to all ages and it is funded by Humanities Iowa, a private, non-profit state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Come celebrate Fiber Arts February!

The following new materials are available at the library:

Gifts & Memorials

All For a Song by Allison Pittman given in memory of Carolyn Graber by her Washington County Public Health co-workers

Adult Fiction

Rosemary Opens Her Heart by Naomi King, Alex Cross, Run by James Patterson

Large Print Fiction

Deadly Stakes by J. A. Jance, Guilt by Jonathan Kellerman, Political Suicide by Michael Palmer

Young Adult Fiction

Who Done It? by Jon Scieszka

Juvenile Fiction

Stink & the Freaky Frog Freakout by Megan McDonald

Adult Nonfiction

Bicycles: Love Poems by Nikki Giovanni, iPad Kickstart by Jay Kinghorn, A Higher Call by Adam Makos, Rin Tin Tin by Susan Orlean, When I Was a Child I Read Books by Marilynne Robinson, Meatless by Martha Stewart