Library Lines: Find your playful side
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Playing “According to Hoyle…” makes you an ace at games, right? This phrase, “According to Hoyle,” means to play by the respected rules and regulations of whatever game or situation you are engaged in. And you can celebrate “According to Hoyle” Day on Aug. 29, which is the anniversary of Edmond Hoyle’s death (1672-1769).
As National Today website states, Edmond Hoyle was a British lawyer who is “best known for his definitive books on the rules and regulations of the popular board games and card games of his time. His vast knowledge of gameplay and rules became the final word, with many people verifying a rule by saying the phrase ‘According to Hoyle…’” Thus, Hoyle is considered to be the first technical writer of card and board game rules.
Hoyle’s first publication was a small booklet titled, “A Short Treatise on the Game of Whist,” which he wrote in 1742 and subsequently revised 13 times. According to gamerules.com, Whist is a trick-taking card game that is played with two traditional decks of 52 cards and up to 4 players in pairs. It was a popular English game played during the 18th and 19th century, and a forerunner of Bridge.
Ready to honor “According to Hoyle” Day? Just choose any of the games that Hoyle codified the rules for such as chess, backgammon, whist, piquet, quadrille, or brag! Really, any card or board game that you can play “According to Hoyle...” is OK, too! Just have fun!
And if you need a board game or deck of cards, check out the Cheboygan Area Public Library’s Library of Things collection, which includes dozens of games for all ages and skill levels! To borrow any item for the Library of Things collection, just have your library card handy. All games can be checked out for three weeks.
Some of the newer additions to the Library of Things games collection includes several larger outdoor games including cornhole bean-bag toss, portable badminton, yard Yahtzee, Kan Jam, Ring Toss and portable table tennis. With these and all the other card, dice, and board games, the collection boasts more than 80 games.
Also included in the Library of Things are a few cooking tools including a Sunbeam automatic bread maker, a BabyCake Mini’s cake pop maker, and a Salton five-trays food dehydrator. And there’s more! Some of the other items to borrow from the Library of Things collection are ukuleles, fishing poles with tackle boxes, video game consoles, 3D pens, rubber art stamps, and Wi-Fi hotspots!
Looking ahead, September will offer a program on the History of Indian Boarding Schools, presented by Eric Hemenway who is the Director of Repatriation, Archives and Records for the Little Traverse Bay Band of Odawa Indians. This program will be 6 p.m. Sept. 15 at the Cheboygan Area Public Library.
The kiddos will be entertained by Mr. Wizard’s Magic Show & More program, which will feature Daisy the Unicorn puppet! The magic of this program will take place at 6 p.m. Sept. 14 at the Cheboygan Area Public Library.
In October, there will be a program with Historian Valerie Gugala that explores presidential gravesites and discovers “Who’s in Grant’s Tomb” at 6 p.m. Oct. 10.
Oct. 26 beginning at 6 p.m. there will be an evening of family fun full of (kind-of) scary stories with the Cheboygan Area Public Library’s program “Ghosts & Goblins & Haunted Stories!” All of these programs are free and open to the public.
— Emily Clare is program director of the Cheboygan Area Public Library.
This article originally appeared on Cheboygan Daily Tribune: Library Lines: Find your playful side
