Here’s my weekly round-up of events for the week of May 23 – 29 on Mercer Island:
Story Times at the Library
Mercer Island Library, 8501 SE 40th St (Temporary location)
Join the Mercer Island Children’s Librarian for stories, songs, rhymes and fun in these 30 to 45-minute programs designed especially for you and your young child.
Tuesday, May 24
Young Toddlers (12 – 24 months) – 10:30 – 11:15 am
Toddlers (2 – 3 years) – 11:30 am – Noon
Spotlight on Biz Chicks on the Rock 
Tuesday, May 24, 6:30 to 8pm
Island Books, 3014 78th Ave SE
Featuring empowered local merchants. Check out (and buy!) awesome products from Coco Beza, Family Paleo Kitchen, Island Treats, Jeanette Risco Art & Design, Jen’s Signs, and Regan McCrary’s personal stylist services. We’ll be serving food and wine, so raise a glass with us in a toast to Biz Chicks on the Rock!
Storybook Corner at Island Books
Wednesday, May 25, 10:30 to 11 am
Island Books, 3014 78th Ave SE
Bring your little ones in to enjoy popular picture books read by our staff or special guests.
Music at Mo’s Pizza
Wednesday, 5:30 – 8 pm
Mo’s Pizza, 2630 77th Ave SE
Come to Mo’s Pizza to enjoy live music this Wednesday. No cover! All ages welcome. This week’s band is On the Rock (Swing/Roots), featuring Patrick Daugherty (Guitar/Vocals/Harmonica), Mark Gibbs (Bass), Edgar Steinitz (Clarinet/Sax). Reservations are encouraged. Call 206-236-6000.
Mo’s Pizza website >>
Open Book Club: And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie 
Wednesday, May 25, 7:30pm
Island Books, 3014 78th Ave SE
Often considered the best mystery novel ever written, And Then There Were None is the story of 10 strangers, each lured to Indian Island by a mysterious host. Once his guests have arrived, the host accuses each person of murder. Unable to leave the island, the guests begin to share their darkest secrets. Then the deaths begin, and they scramble to unmask the killer even as their number is reduced in macabre accordance with the “Ten Little Indians” nursery rhyme displayed in rooms throughout the house.
Who orchestrated this scenario and why? What makes this the perfectly executed “red herring” novel? And what about the motive behind the murders of all the guests? Does everyone get what they deserve?
Island Book’s open book club meets the last Wednesday of every month at 7:30pm. Our staff facilitator chooses both fiction and nonfiction titles. All are welcome to attend, and if you purchase your book here in the store you’ll always get a 10% discount.
Learn more>>
Jim Lynch, Author of Before the Wind 
Thursday, May 26, 7 pm
Island Books, 3014 78th Ave SE
Acclaimed Northwest writer Jim Lynch, author of The Highest Tide ,Border Songs, and Truth Like the Sun, returns to his Mercer Island roots in support of his new novel.Before the Wind is a grand and idiosyncratic family saga that will stand alongside Ken Kesey’s Sometimes a Great Notion.
Joshua Johannssen has spent all of his life surrounded by sailboats. His grandfather designed them, his father built and raced them, his Einstein-obsessed mother knows why and how they work (or not). For Josh and his two siblings, their backyard was the Puget Sound and sailing their DNA. But both his sister and brother fled many years ago: Ruby to Africa and elsewhere to do good works on land, and Bernard to god-knows-where at sea, a fugitive and pirate. Suddenly thirty-one, Josh who repairs boats of all kinds in a Steinbeckian marina south of Seattle is pained and confused by whatever the hell went wrong with his volatile family. His parents are barely speaking, his mystified grandfather is drinking harder, and he himself despite an endless and comic flurry of online dates hasn’t even come close to finding a girlfriend.
But when the Johannssens unexpectedly reunite for the most important race in these waters all of them together on a classic vessel they made decades ago they will be carried to destinies both individual and collective, and to a heart-shattering revelation. Past and present merge seamlessly and collide surprisingly as Jim Lynch reveals a family unlike any other, with the grace and humor and magic of a master storyteller.
Learn more>>
Youth Theatre Northwest presents: Harriet the Spy 
Friday, May 27, 7 pm; Saturday, May 28, 2 pm & 7 pm; Sunday, May 29, 2 pm
YTN Black Box at Emmanuel Episcopal Church, 4400 86th Ave SE
Harriet M. Welch is the willful only child of well-to-do socialites. She is also a spy, who observes her friends and neighbors and writes about them in her notebook. Harriet spends much of her time with her loving nurse Ole Golly, who artfully teaches her about life. One fateful night Ole Golly announces she plans to marry and move to Canada. Soon after, Harriet’s notebook is found and read by all of her friends and classmates. Harriet’s blunt and mean observations in her notebook cause everyone at school to dislike her. Harriet is distressed and spirals out of control until she gets a visit from Ole Golly, who shares with her the helpful tip, “Sometimes you have to lie. But to yourself you must always tell the truth.”
Learn more>>
