Bangor

Promoting tolerance

The Penquis Community Action Program Resource Development Center will offer “Talking About Differences: Promoting Tolerance Using Children’s Books” for child-care professionals, 6-9 p.m. Wednesday, May 28 and June 6, at Penquis CAP, 262 Harlow St. It is funded by a Verizon grant.

Young children are aware of difference – skin color, body shape, gender, language, family structure and living arrangements – from a very early age, officials said. The training sessions uses high quality, vividly illustrated children’s books as a vehicle for meaningful conversations about difference.

Activities accompanying the children’s literature selection are included in the curriculum guide. Each participant will receive 12 books and the curriculum guide.

The cost of the training program is $10. Scholarships are available. For information, call 941-2840.

Orono

Book signing

Orono Public Library will hold a reading and book signing at 7 p.m. Tuesday, May 27, to celebrate the publication of “Standing Just Outside the Door and Two Other Plays” by Sandy Phippen. Copies of the book will be available for purchase and refreshments will be served. Call the library at 866-5060 for information.

Penobscot legends

The Orono Public Library will present the second program in its “So You Think You Know Maine” series at 7 p.m. Thursday, May 29, at the library. The program is “Ancient Stories, Youthful Storyteller: Penobscot Legends on Film.” Tiana Vermette, a member of the Penobscot Nation who won the grand prize in the Maine Student Film and Video Festival for her animated film, “The Wind Bird,” will show her film and talk about how she made the modern media retelling of a traditional Penobscot tale.

Winterport

Young adult novel

“The Little Yokozuna,” a young-adult fantasy set in Japan and written by Winterport resident and local educator Dr. Wayne Shorey, is set to appear in area bookstores in May. Published by Tuttle Publishing, “The Little Yokozuna” is an adventure story featuring Zen gardens, Japanese mythology and the ancient sport of sumo.

In the story, a family of seven children mysteriously lose their youngest sister on a trip to Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts and end up pursuing her by mystic paths to Japan, where they meet a young Japanese boy named Kiyoshi-chan.

Shorey is the director of the Haworth Academic Center in downtown Bangor. He was born in Tokyo and lived nearly 20 years in Japan and Korea. He also has lived and worked in Tanzania and Alaska.

He holds a doctorate in history from Northwestern University, has taught college and high school for many years and is the father of seven children. He is working on two more novels – a sumo sequel to “The Little Yokozuna,” and what he describes as a “quirky” philosophical novel for adults involving a new take on time travel.