Your October Guide to the Valley is Live

A live tribute to the Karen and Richard Carpenter catalog that defined soft rock in the 1970s.

Seven hours of music on the cidery grounds off Route 2, next to the Gill Tavern. A rare reason to point the car up past Turners Falls on a Saturday afternoon.

Montague's community fair, free, with live music from the Jazz Queens, face painting, refreshments, and tables from local organizations. Hosted by the Montague public libraries at the riverside park downtown.

The saxophonist headlines the Northampton Jazz Festival's mainstage night at the Academy on Main Street. Benjamin's Coltrane-rooted quartet has been one of the busiest touring jazz acts of the last two years.

Tom Ricardi brings owls and other birds of prey from the Massachusetts Birds of Prey Rehabilitation Center from 11:30 to 1:30. There is also a dried and silk flower wreath demo, Irish music from New Leaf, lunch from Cliff's Smokin' Backyard Barbeque, and free ice cream and cider.

The UMass Wind Ensemble and Symphony Band play movie music, marches and polkas on the common, free and outdoors. Matthew Westgate and Lindsay Bronnenkant conduct.

The Story of Ferdinand with Sol y Canto brings the Latin roots band to the Eric Carle Museum for a narrated, bilingual take on Munro Leaf's classic about the bull who would rather smell flowers than fight. Sol y Canto builds audience participation into the show, so kids are singing and moving along rather than sitting quietly through a reading.

The Gill Harvest Festival takes over the town common for three hours on Sunday afternoon. It's the Franklin County version of a fall town day, worth the drive up Route 2 if your kids like open grass to run on between whatever the town has set up.

Jewelry Making for Kids at the Palmer Public Library sets kids up with fall-themed supplies to build necklaces and bracelets. Caretakers stay to help, and registration is required, so sign up ahead if you're planning to bring a group.

Anything but a Paintbrush at Storrs Library hands kids forks, toothbrushes, and cotton swabs and turns them loose on paint. The mess is the point, and it's the library's mess to clean up rather than yours.

The Springfield Thunderbirds open their preseason against the Providence Bruins at the MassMutual Center on Friday night. Preseason AHL tickets run cheaper than the regular season, which makes this a lower-stakes way to test whether your kids can sit through a full hockey game. Note that kids two and older need their own ticket.

Fostering Kittens at the South Hadley Public Library is a Girl Scout Gold Award project done with Dakin Animal Shelter and Thomas J. O'Connor, walking families through what kitten fostering actually looks like. Donations of kitten food and toys are welcome but not required.

Kindness Rocks at the East Longmeadow Public Library runs as a four-day drop-in from Friday through Monday: come into the library, paint a rock with a positive message, and leave it somewhere in town for a stranger to find. It's a low-commitment craft you can knock out in fifteen minutes on the way to something else.