Book Review: Like Pickle Juice on a Cookie
Like Pickle Juice on a Cookie by Julie Sternberg and illustrated by Matthew Cordell takes place during the summer between second and third grade, but starts out not as sunny as a summer day.I had a bad...
View ArticleBook Review: Warp Speed
Warp Speed by Lisa Yee tells the story of Marley Sandelski, a seventh grade Star Trek geek at Rancho Rosetta Middle School. Marley has some great friends and loves being in AV club with the other...
View ArticlePleading Planet: Review of the film Koyaanisqatsi
The first time I saw the film Koyaanisqatsi I was a college student rambling around on an aimless Saturday night. A campus hall was screening it for free, so I ducked inside, my curiosity piqued. I...
View ArticleNotes From a Life-Long Learner
I am a rabid, chronic life-long learner, and I'm starting this column because promoting life-long learning is one of the key components of our mission here at NYPL. Also, I bet there are a lot of...
View ArticleNotes From a Life-Long Learner: Social Dance
Social Dancing, which consists of various forms of dance, such as square dancing, is a communal tradition brought to the American continent by its earliest immigrants. Big in centuries past, social...
View ArticleNew Juvenile Non Fiction
It can be tricky to find good non fiction for kids. The good offerings strike a delicate balance between factual accuracy, realistic portrayal and general appeal. I recently found two great new books...
View ArticleNotes From a Life-Long Learner: Comedy Writing
"It's the jokes. I need the jokes."This is something a young library patron said to me the other day. He wanted me to find him a DVD of Abbott and Costello’s greatest movies and routines. I felt an...
View ArticleNotes From a Life-Long Learner: Rattlesnake!!!
The sound of a Rattlesnake's warning is terrifying and hard to describe. It doesn’t sound like a baby’s toy. Well, it might if the toy was being shaken at a million times per second by an angry,...
View ArticleNotes From a Life-Long Learner: God — To Be(lieve) or Not To Be(lieve)
I spent a recent weekend pondering the existence of God. It’s something I do from time to time because I was a religious person once, in the Judeo/Christian tradition, but am not so now. After many...
View ArticleLearn to Express Yourself Through Art: Free Courses for Midlife and Older Adults
Thanks to Lifetime Arts for securing funding and inviting our library system to participate, NYPL is once again able to offer free sustained art courses, taught by professional teaching artists, for...
View ArticleAfricans in India: From Slaves to Generals and Rulers
Generals, commanders, admirals, prime ministers, and rulers, East Africans greatly distinguished themselves in India. They wrote a story unparalleled in the rest of the world — that of enslaved...
View ArticleClassroom Connections: 'New York, Then & Now' Immigration to Washington...
The story of immigration to America is a rich tapestry whose opposing threads, oddly for how much they reject each other's reality, hang together as one. It outrages us and gives us hope in...
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