Amherst Ma

A site rendering for 98 Fearing St. shows the proposed three-unit, 10-bed home presented by Kuhn Riddle Architects to the Local Historic District Commission. CONTRIBUTED

This rendering depicts what the former Hastings shop (white building) at 45 South Pleasant St., which has been redeveloped into an Amherst College bookstore. An attached five-story mixed-use building has been approved to rise in the back. KUHN RIDDLE ARCHITECTS

About a mile from where I live, there is a convenience store and a doughnut shop. For a period of a few years, a woman of perhaps 60 years of age could be found standing outside one of these establishments on most days. She would be shuffling her feet, almost as if marching in place, and staring straight ahead.

Amherst illustrator and children’s book author Tony DiTerlizzi of Amherst is a co-creator of the original “Spiderwick Chronicles” books. COURTESY RHALEE HUGHES PERRY/SPIDERWICK STUDIOS

Ian Rhodewalt, a field organizer for the Western Mass Area Labor Federation, speaks during a debt cancellation rally Wednesday at the Haigis Mall at the University of Massachusetts. STAFF PHOTO/SCOTT MERZBACH

Ian Rhodewalt, a field organizer for the Western Mass Area Labor Federation, speaks during a debt cancellation rally Wednesday at the Haigis Mall at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. STAFF PHOTO/SCOTT MERZBACH

AMHERST — A foundational skills reading program, known as Magnetic Foundations, is being piloted by eight teachers in the four Amherst and Pelham elementary schools as the focus of an elementary literacy curriculum review this school year.

Colleen Kelley, fourth in from the left, crouches in a field of lush green native plants with a group of parents and young children leading a lesson about environmentalism and loving nature. COURTESY HITCHCOCK CENTER

AMHERST — An ongoing feasibility study is examining how the area around the War Memorial Pool, a 2-acre site in downtown Amherst close to Amherst Regional High School, can be revitalized into a popular destination for families.

At a ribbing-cutting ceremony Thursday to mark the reopening of the North Amherst Library, the public found out for the first time that resident Hilda Greenbaum, seated, was the anonymous donor who funded the $1.7 million project. GAZETTE FILE PHOTO