Archives for Featured

What’s New in the Edge: December 2022

As the end of the year approaches, I like to share the books in our YA fiction collection that have been most popular during the year. I've gathered the top ten most popular books in our collection that were published in 2022. After that, you'll see a few older titles that were also very popular among White Plains readers this year. YA Fiction's most popular titles published in 2022: Twin Crowns by Catherine Doyle and Katherine Webber Grades 9 and up Library Catalog / Libby “Wren Greenrock's parents were the king and queen of Eana before they were murdered. While
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Categories: Authors & Books, Featured, Homepage Teens, Library News, and Teens.

January Tweens Talk Banned Books

January Tweens Talk Banned Books Grades 4-6 January 19th at 4:30-6:00 p.m. Virtual Registration required. Register here. Note: All of our youth-focused virtual programs require a registered Zoom account to attend. Sign up for a free Zoom account here: http://zoom.us/signup. As cases of censorship have grown more widespread throughout the U.S., the Library has kicked off a year-long celebration of banned books – #WPFreedomToRead – that started during Banned Books Week (September 18-24 2022.) The Library’s celebration of banned books will feature a variety of programs for adults, teens, and children throughout the year. Join us at the Trove for
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Categories: Authors & Books, Events, Featured, Homepage Kids, Kids, and Library News.

2022 Staff Favorites

The White Plains Library Staff have assembled their picks for the year, featuring mystery, audiobooks, fantasy, and more. It's a wonderfully wide-ranging list, full of lots of surprises, and should help with your holiday shopping or just some entertainment for yourself. Enjoy! Below you'll find a list with links to the catalog or resource where they're available as well as a blurb on why staff enjoyed it. Fiction Murder at the Savoy by Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo. Library Catalog This is the sixth novel in the Martin Beck series, Beck being the go-to detective in Sweden's National Homicide Squad
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Categories: Authors & Books, Featured, Homepage, and Local History.

Beautiful Bilingual Books, Part 4

The Library has a lovely collection of bilingual Spanish/English books. To celebrate reading in two languages, we will be featuring our beautiful new books in a blog – so enjoy practicing your Spanish and English skills with these picture books. La Biblioteca tiene una colección hermosa de libros bilingües en inglés/español. Para celebrar leyendo en dos idiomas, le estaremos presentando nuestros lindos libros aquí. Así que disfrute practicando sus destrezas en ambos idiomas con estos libros ilustrados. El niño de maíz / The Boy of Maize, by Mario Bencastro. Library Catalog Inspirado en el mito maya de la creación, este
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Categories: Authors & Books, Featured, Homepage Kids, Kids, and Library News.

This Month in the Edge

This month, we have several activities going on in the Edge. Drop-in activities will be available during Edge hours all through the month of December. Scheduled programs take place at specific times, linked below. Please join us for one or all! Drop-in Activities: Holiday Cards Make holiday cards for your family and friends. We've got all the card-making supplies you'll need, plus some video tutorials for making cards to celebrate various winter holidays. A holiday card example is featured above. Gift Wrapping We've set up a gift wrapping station with wrapping paper and ribbon. We sourced our supplies secondhand from
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Categories: Events, Featured, Homepage Teens, Library News, and Teens.

New in the Edge

One of the best parts of my job is ordering new books for the Edge–reading the reviews, seeing what popular authors come up with next, or finding out about an upcoming sequel to an old favorite. Read on to find out about some of the new YA fiction titles coming to our shelves this month. How to Excavate a Heart by Jake Maia Arlow Grades 9 and up Library Catalog “Queer Jewish love stubbornly blooms despite the cold of a Washington, D.C., winter. Fresh off a cataclysmic first semester of college, Shani is determined to pass her winter break internship
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Categories: Authors & Books, Featured, Homepage Teens, Library News, and Teens.

Edge Advisory Board

Edge Advisory Board Grades 7-12 Saturdays, 11:00 – 11:55 a.m. – February 11, March 11, and April 1 Edge Media Lab Teens in grades 7 – 12 are invited to join an advisory board to help shape the future of the Edge. The board will help plan and organize Edge programming, among another initiatives. Teens may earn community service for meaningful participation. Please contact Kathlyn Carroll at kcarroll@whiteplainslibrary.org with any questions.
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Categories: Events, Featured, Homepage Teens, Library News, and Teens.

Crafts for the Holidays (Gr. 7-12)

Crafts for the Holidays Grades 7-12 Thursdays, 4:00 – 5:00 p.m. – December 1, 8, 15 Edge Media Lab Stop by and make a craft to celebrate the winter holidays. We'll have supplies to make holiday cards, tiny watercolor paintings, and snowflake window decorations. This event is open to grades 7 and up on a first come, first served basis.
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Categories: Events, Featured, Homepage Teens, Library News, and Teens.

Opening of Optimum Technology Room

This morning, the Library hosted a ribbon cutting for our new Optimum Technology Room, which uses Igloovision, software that provides an immersive experience. Imagine being in a room in which the walls serve as your computer display, effectively putting you inside a wrap-around 12k television. Or think of a room as a giant walk-in Virtual Reality (VR) headset, except one in which the immersive experience can be shared with one or more others. This is the concept behind the Igloo, an immersive workspace created by Igloovision. Any kind of digital content can be shown on the walls of an Igloo:
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Categories: Director's Corner, Featured, Homepage, and Library News.

December Book Bunch

Thursday, December 22nd at 4:30 p.m. Click here to register for our Book Bunch Join Caroline for a book discussion and trivia game for 4th through 8th graders! We will be reading Stargazing by Jen Wang. This is a perfect read to celebrate the holiday season. Stargazing is a graphic novel by Jen Wang. The book is about a friendship between two Chinese American girls Christine and Moon. Soon the two girls become best friends and share their favorite books and videos, and confide in each other. When Moon tells Christine a secret (that she has visions from celestial beings),
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Categories: Authors & Books, Events, Featured, Homepage Kids, Kids, and Library News.

Daughters of America: Digest of the Day

Recently a member of the local Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) chapter viewed the Local History Room’s file on the DAR.  She noted that the last item in the file belonged to the Daughters of America, not the DAR, and was curious what that group was. The item in question is a 36-page booklet called Digest of the Day, published in 1930 by the Daughters of America’s Martha Washington Council No. 8 in White Plains. According to The International Encyclopedia of Secret Societies and Fraternal Orders, the Daughters of America was “a female auxiliary to the Junior Order of
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Categories: Featured, Homepage, and Local History.

#WPFreedomToRead Challenge

“I'll be absolutely candid and honest, it's embarrassing that we are banning books in this country, in this culture, in this day and age.” – LeVar Burton As part of our year-long celebration of banned and challenged books, adults and teens are invited to join our #WPFreedomToRead Challenge. It's fun! It's easy! There are prizes! Yes, YOU could win a Kindle Paperwhite or other bookish prize! All you need to do is read banned or challenged books and log what you've read in READsquared. Each banned or challenged book you read and log earns you an entry in our prize
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Categories: Authors & Books, Events, Featured, Homepage, and Library News.

December Programs for Younger Kids

Great programs for younger children take place all month long, every month, at the Library.  See our online calendar or stop in the Trove for location information. Holiday PreK Grab & Go Kits Available throughout December – More information here. Storytime! Ages 2-6, Families Tuesdays, 11:00 a.m. – December 6, December 20, December 27 Thursdays, 11:00 a.m. – December 1, December 15, December 29 Saturday, 2:00 p.m. – December 3 Stories, songs and fun with a Trove Librarian. Following Storytime on Tuesdays and Thursdays, the children and caregivers are invited to Toy Time in the Story Trove – a time
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Categories: Authors & Books, Events, Featured, Homepage Kids, Kids, and Library News.

Author Visit Storytimes in December

Author Visit & Storytime: Hanukkah Nights Ages 2-6, Families Friday, 11:00 a.m. – December 2 Join author, artist and children’s book creator Amalia Hoffman in celebrating a colorful and creative Hanukkah with her new book Hanukkah Nights! Amalia will demonstrate how she created amazing textures for each night of Hanukkah. Children will create their own bright lights and have fun! The presentation will include lighting an electronic menorah, coloring pages and sing-along. Learn more about Amalia Hoffman here. Author Visit & Storytime: Cucarachita Martina Ages 2-6, Families Saturday, 2:00 p.m. – December 10 Listen to New York city author Yadhira
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Categories: Authors & Books, Events, Featured, Homepage Kids, Kids, and Library News.

Native American Heritage Month

In November we honor the peoples who lived here before European colonization. Their presence continues to be felt and seen everywhere. From teaching the pilgrims how to survive those first bitter Northeastern winters, to the underappreciated part they played on the Underground Railroad, to the Code Talkers who helped us win World War II. There is much about them we still do not know. As we continue to learn their stories, to share their wisdom, and learn from each other, we can take a moment to enjoy the titles below. You can also visit the Smithsonian National Museum of the
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Categories: Authors & Books, Featured, Homepage Kids, Kids, and Library News.

November Programs for Younger Kids

Great programs for younger children take place all month long, every month, at the Library.  See our online calendar or stop in the Trove for location information. Autumn StoryWalk: Full of Fall On display on the Library Plaza through Wednesday, 11/30 Featuring Full of Fall by April Pulley Sayre – a visually stunning picture book that captures the essence of Fall.  More information here. Storytime! Ages 2-6, Families Tuesdays, 11:00 a.m. – November 1, November 15, November 29 Thursdays, 11:00 a.m. – November 3, November 17 Stories, songs and fun with a Trove Librarian. Following Storytime, the children and caregivers
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Categories: Authors & Books, Events, Featured, Homepage Kids, Kids, and Library News.

Wanderhome: The Journey Begins

Wednesday, November 9th, 4:00 – 6:00 p.m. Grades 7-12 Edge Media Lab No registration required! For more information click here. Have you ever been interested in playing D&D but felt too intimidated by all the rules? Ever read books like Erin Hunter's Warriors or Brian Jacques' Redwall series and wanted to have adventures like those characters? Look no further than the roleplaying game (RPG) Wanderhome! Wanderhome is a game created by Jay Dragon based on cooperative storytelling, with only a couple rules and guidelines to keep straight after character creation. The game is run either by a game master or
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Categories: Events, Featured, Homepage Kids, Homepage Teens, Kids, Library News, and Teens.

November Middle Grade Pick of the Month

Middle grade is a term that refers to books written for readers between the ages of eight and twelve. In this column, Erica will recommend great books for children in this age group! Windswept by Margi Preus Library Catalog: Print Windswept is a story within a story, regaling the reader with a story fit for a fairy tale about the journey of a young girl in search of her lost siblings. In a future of our world, when stories are banned, anyone under the age of fifteen is forbidden from going outside for fear of the wind sweeping them away.
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Categories: Authors & Books, Featured, Homepage Kids, Kids, and Library News.

Parenting Collection

Did you know the Library has a Parenting Collection in the Trove filled with books for adults and children to help with various topics related to raising a child? Stop in and check it out! The Parenting Collection is a collection of titles to help caregivers raise children from pregnancy through teen years, as well as books written for children to help them understand themselves & the world, organized into topics including: Big Ideas! (social justice & activism, gender identity, racism & prejudice, etc.) Brain & Body COVID Family Illness Family Types Feelings Grief Maturing New Baby New Places Potty
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Categories: Authors & Books, Featured, Homepage Kids, Kids, and Library News.

Announcing Kids Pick

The Trove has a new program called Kids Pick which is for all Trove patrons to participate in! What is Kids Pick? Well, you just read a book and give us your review! Did you just read a book you can't stop talking about? Do you have a favorite book you think everyone should read? Maybe you love the illustrations in a new graphic novel! It is as easy as 1, 2, 3… Read a book! Fill out the Kids Pick form available in the Trove. Give the form to a Librarian at the Compass desk. We will put your
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Categories: Events, Featured, Homepage Kids, Kids, and Library News.