When Kathleen Belmont saw all the books the Friends of the Library were giving away last week for the Newtown Reads program, she wished they had bought copies of her nephew’s first novel instead of April Morning by Howard Fast. But I think Matthew B.J. Delaney’s crime-horror-sci-fi novel called Jinn will do just fine on its own, without the help of the Friends.

Kathleen’s nephew Matt, who lives outside of Boston, wrote the book the summer after he graduated from Dartmouth. When he sold the book to St Martin’s Press, Kathleen bought him a brick outside the Booth Library. (If you want to look for it, it says “Matthew Delaney, Author 2000.”) The book was finally released last month and the March 3 issue of People magazine featured Jinn as its page-turner of the week. And, Kathleen tells me, Disney’s Touchstone Pictures has already bought the screen rights to the book.

It was difficult to keep on task at the meeting of the Booth Library Board of Trustees Tuesday evening while the UConn women’s basketball team was playing Villanova. Janet Woycik and Pat Denlinger were glued to a small Walkman, listening with dismay as the Huskies 70-game winning streak came to an end. Board member Joanne Zang missed the meeting because of the game, but she checked in by phone to report the score. Despite the distraction of the Big East championship, the board managed to review its personnel policy and conduct all the rest of its regular monthly business.

Just back from an extended vacation in Florida, Liz Arneth showed up for the library board meeting but she was walking gingerly. Liz explained that she was home barely a day when she managed to get hurt. She heard something boil over on the stove in her kitchen, rushed to turn down the heat, and slammed her foot into a table, breaking her little toe.

Maria Sadlier has taken up a new career that she is able to work around the many hours she volunteers as an EMT with the ambulance corps. Maria is selling coffee and espresso-cappuccino makers from Italy to stores in New York and Connecticut. She made her first Connecticut sale in Newtown this week. Customers at Carminuccio’s now will be able to enjoy a cup with their cannoli and tira misu.

There wasn’t much to laugh about at Monday’s Board of Finance meeting, but board member Jim Gaston did provide a chuckle or two when he stood up to review school budget numbers using several folio-size newsprint sheets. They were covered top to bottom in line-item descriptions and sums –– all written out by hand using a bright red marker. We don’t know if audience members found the sight of all that red ink disturbing but someone in the back piped up, “Next time, write larger and use a bigger piece of paper!” Somehow, during this difficult budget year, black ink would have been more reassuring.

Don’t ask John Klopfenstein for a light unless you know Arabic. John had a book of matches in his pocket this week with the likeness of Osama bin Laden on it and lots of accompanying Arabic script. Evidently, it’s something that Uncle Sam has printed up for use in its campaign to capture bin Laden. How John got a hold of it, no one knows. Maybe he has an undercover life no one knows about.

Staff member Debby Kenyon was all dressed in green, complete with green hat, sweater, and even funny glasses for the St Patrick’s Day bingo March 12. The hat, which resembled that worn by The Cat in the Hat, and the glasses she said she found in her home, not in the Senior Center party supply closet as one might think. Of her attire, she said, “The Cat in the Hat came back as a leprechaun.”

Barbara Gates’ granddaughter Cali King has participated in the Alaska Iditarod. Cali is 18 years old. What an accomplishment.

Don’t forget about the St Patrick’s Dinner Dance Saturday night at 7 pm at The Fireside Inn. Come up leprechauns, get out there and support Newtown Youth Services. Realtor Bob Tendler said he would dance with anyone who showed up.

The Newtown High School Drama Club will be performing Cole Porter’s Anything Goes beginning Thursday, March 20, at 7:30 pm. Other shows will be performed Friday, March 21, at 8 pm, and March 22 at 2 and 8 pm. The cast has been laughing pretty hard all through rehearsals, so it’s bound to be a pretty funny show. Call 426-4212 for tickets while they last.

With all the snow this winter, Newtown students sure must have been confused last week with a delay Wednesday, a day off on Thursday, and another delay on Friday. So they were in school all of three days last week. How lucky are they with a vacation in February and another in April, if, of course, Mother Nature decides to be nice since there have already been four snow days. But the poor souls will be in school until June 19 or 20.

Reporter Jan Howard’s father, Stanley Gurski of Brookfield, said that “old timers” would say the “thunder snow” experienced last week was a sign that winter was breaking up. Given the snow predicted for Thursday this week, it might also be a sign of winter just getting warmed up for an encore.

No encores for me. I’ll just take a bow and get out of here, but be sure to…

Read me again.