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The digital revolution notwithstanding, there are still simple pleasures

that require no booting-up, no sophisticated shutting down and no energy

source beyond that provided by those who enjoy them.

Delivered through devices that never crash, that advertise nothing, that

are widely available to all, these pleasures are the raison d’etre for

“Celebrate the Center for the Book” -- a series of Newport Beach Central

Library programs that will promote the joys of reading and the legacy of

libraries.

Planned in conjunction with the library’s designation as a California

Center for the Book, the programs will advance the message of the Center

of the Book, a major Library of Congress division, which has noted on its

logo since 1977 that “books give us wings.”

“How a Book Comes to Be,” featuring illustrator Robin Preiss Glasser,

will launch the celebration at 2 p.m. March 25. Children will dramatize

Glasser’s “You Can’t Take a Balloon Into the Metropolitan Museum,” a

whimsical picture story about a girl’s trip to New York City’s famed

museum and the parallel journey of her balloon.

While the tale is told without text, it blends all the elements of a

winning narrative: engaging setting, lively characterization, absorbing

conflict and the power to inspire individual interpretations from each

“reader.”

Throughout April, photographs from “Library: the Drama Within,” a

nostalgic tribute to libraries published in association with the Center

for the Book, will be displayed at the Central Library.

While capturing a sense of the variety of the world’s libraries, the

photographs reveal that people, as well as books, find shelter in the

stacks.

At 7 p.m. April 11, Diane Asseo Griliches, the photographer who snapped

60 views of “one of the very few institutions ... where any soul may walk

through its doors free and depart enriched” will present “Tales from the

Road.”

Through anecdotes gleaned from the six years she spent photographing

libraries around the globe, Griliches will reveal why she concluded it is

the readers inside who create a library’s drama.

On tap for 7 p.m. May 17 is a reading from “Demolition Angel,” the ninth

novel by mystery writer Robert Crais. Although this new thriller by the

author of the popular Elvis Cole tales does not star the wisecracking

detective, Crais introduces an equally captivating protagonist in Carol

Starkey, a Los Angeles Police Department detective pitted against a

brilliant assassin.

Fans of the investigative crime genre won’t want to miss this

presentation by a Santa Monica-based writer critics have called the next

Raymond Chandler.

While providing entertaining interludes, all of these programs will

advance Center of the Book goals: heightening public interest in books

and printing, promoting reading, and encouraging the interdisciplinary

study of print and electronic culture.