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Celebrate LGBTQIA+ Pride

Celebrate LGBTQIA+ Pride

Join us this June in celebrating Pride Month! We’ve got a variety of events planned this month and some exciting book recommendations below for all ages. In addition to our events, we’ll be attending Westchester Pride on June 4th. We’ll be tabling, but we’re also pleased to announce that Westchester County will honor the Library at the upcoming LGBTQ Pride Flag Raising ceremony for our “consistent celebration of Pride and Trans Day of Visibility”, as well as our “support of LGBTQ+ Podcasting & Radio.” The Flag Raising will be on Sunday, June 4th at 11:30 a.m. It will be held
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May 25, 2023 9:00 am | by | No Comments
Categories: Authors & Books, Book Discussion, Events, Featured, Homepage, Homepage Kids, Homepage Teens, Kids, Library News, and Teens.
Tags: Alex Gino, LGBTQIA+, Observances and Celebrations, Observances and Holidays, Pride Month, staff picks, and staff recommendations.

After Hours in the Edge: for WP Teens in Gr. 9-12

After Hours in the Edge: for WP Teens in Gr. 9-12

As part of a citywide initiative to provide more evening activities for high schoolers, the Library is excited to announce the start of After Hours in the Edge. After Hours in the Edge is a special event, when the Library is not open to the general public, from 6:00 – 9:00 pm.  In addition, it is only for White Plains residents in grades 9-12. Teens are invited to just come hang out, or take part in one of a number of activities that will change from month to month, such as karaoke, video games, a photobooth, crafts, and more.  AND,
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May 25, 2023 8:59 am | by | No Comments
Categories: Events, Featured, Homepage, Homepage Teens, Library News, and Teens.
Tags: After Hours, events for teens, events in White Plains, First Fridays, and programs for teens.

Juneteenth Activities

Juneteenth Activities

Grab & Go Kits: Juneteenth! Monday, June 12th at 10:00 a.m. For: Grades K-3 Location: Lobby Pick up a new Grab & Go Kit at the Library, while supplies last, starting June 12th. Kits will be in a bin in the Library's lobby. Juneteenth: Dance Performance with Amanda Armenteros Sunday, June 25th, at 2:00–2:45 pm For: Children & Families Location: Library Plaza, Auditorium (Weather Location) Join Amanda Armenteros and performers for a full immersive traditional West African Dance Performance in celebration of Juneteenth! Amanda Armenteros will be joined by Diana and The Mfoumbila Dance Company for a day of live
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May 25, 2023 8:58 am | by | No Comments
Categories: Authors & Books, Events, Featured, Homepage Kids, Kids, and Library News.
Tags: Amanda Armenteros, books for kids, children's books, dance, dance performance, Juneteenth, Observances and Celebrations, staff picks, and staff recommendations.

STEAM-Powered Summer in the Edge

STEAM-Powered Summer in the Edge

We're looking forward to an awesome series of summer programs! Join us for one or many. Read on for all the information. STEAM-Powered Summer A series of themed activities each week for teens in grades 7-12, in the Media Lab from 1:00-2:30 p.m., Monday through Thursday. For weeks marked Registration Required, teens must sign up through our online calendar and must be able to attend every session that week. Weeks marked Drop In are on a first-come, first-served basis; attend one day or all. This summer series is supported by ConEdison and the White Plains Library Foundation. June 26-29 Space
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May 25, 2023 8:57 am | by | No Comments
Categories: Events, Featured, Homepage Teens, Library News, and Teens.
Tags: Con Edison, ConEdison, programs for teens, programs for teens in Westchester, programs for teens in White Plains, STEAM-powered summer, summer in the Edge, and The Edge.

Supporting Your LGBTQ+ Loved Ones

Supporting Your LGBTQ+ Loved Ones

Safer and Seen: Supporting Your LGBTQ+ Loved Ones with Presenter Caleb Seguin Tuesday, June 13th at 7-8:30 pm For: Adults, High Schoolers (Grades 9 – 12) Location: Virtual Note: a free, registered Zoom account is required Register HERE Perhaps you have a LBGTQ+ family member or friend. Perhaps you wish to understand more about LGBTQ+ issues. Perhaps you are concerned about current events. Please join the Library for an important webinar: Supporting LGBTQ+ Loved Ones. This webinar is geared towards adults, caregivers and adults who work with teens, and older teens. As awareness and acceptance around gender and sexuality grows,
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May 25, 2023 8:56 am | by | No Comments
Categories: Events, Featured, Homepage, Homepage Teens, Library News, and Teens.
Tags: events for parents in White Plains, events for teens, LGBTQ+, LGBTQ+ events in White Plains, LGBTQIA+, Pride, Pride Events in White Plains, and Pride Month.

Teen Volunteer Opportunities – Summer 2023

Teen Volunteer Opportunities – Summer 2023

We know teens need community service hours, and we’re happy to provide a few different options. Below you’ll find a list of all the current ways to contribute to the library community and earn volunteer credit through the White Plains Public Library. If you have any questions, please contact YA librarian Kathlyn Carroll at kcarroll@whiteplainslibrary.org. Volunteer at the Library: Summer 2023 Reading Buddies In a favorite volunteer activity, teens are paired with children who are learning to read. Reading Buddies sessions will be held on Tuesdays 4:30-7:00 p.m., July 11 through August 15. Reading Buddies must apply, and must attend
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May 25, 2023 8:55 am | by | 4 Comments
Categories: Events, Featured, Homepage Teens, Library News, and Teens.
Tags: teen volunteers, teens, The Edge, and volunteer opportunities.

June Programs for Younger Kids

June 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. Storytimes! Thursdays, 11:00 a.m. – June 1, 8, 15, 22, 29 Tuesdays, 11:00 a.m. – June 6, 13, 20 Saturday, 2:00 p.m. – June 10 – Celebrate LGBTQIA+ Pride Month! 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 to play and socialize!Tiny Tots! 0 – 24 months, with a caregiver Fridays,
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May 25, 2023 8:54 am | by | No Comments
Categories: Authors & Books, Events, Featured, Homepage Kids, Kids, and Library News.
Tags: Activities for children in Westchester, activities for children in White Plains, children's events, dance, June 2023, kids, live music, music, performances, programs, storytime, The Trove, trove, and trove events.

This Month in the Edge: June 2023

This Month in the Edge: June 2023

This month, we have several activities going on in the Edge. Drop-in activities have more open availability during the month. Scheduled programs take place at specific times, linked below. Please join us for one or all! Drop-in Activities: Nintendo Switch We'll have our Switch available to play during Edge hours on Tuesdays and Fridays in June. Do Gooders Need to earn some community service credit? Drop in and make some cards for Meals on Wheels. Every Saturday in June. Scheduled Programs: White Plains Teens After Hours Friday June 2 from 6:00 – 9:00 p.m. The Edge Grades 9-12 We're keeping
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May 25, 2023 8:53 am | by | No Comments
Categories: Events, Featured, Homepage Teens, Library News, and Teens.
Tags: events for teens in Westchester, events for teens in White Plains, teen programs, and The Edge.

Five Strong Female Characters in YA Fiction

Five Strong Female Characters in YA Fiction

This month we're celebrating strong heroines in our young adult (YA) fiction collection. Read on for YA Librarian Lilian's recommendations for books that feature capable and inspiring female protagonists. Legendborn by Tracy Deonn Grade 8 and up Library Catalog: All available formats “Sixteen-year-old Black whiz kid Bree Matthews battles grief and demonic forces on her college campus. After her mother dies in an accident, Bree begins a residential program for enterprising teens at her mother’s alma mater and, soon after her arrival, witnesses a magical attack that triggers hidden memories about the evening her mother was killed. Haunted by the
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May 24, 2023 10:00 am | by | No Comments
Categories: Authors & Books, Featured, Homepage Teens, Library News, and Teens.
Tags: books for teens, staff picks, staff recommendations, The Edge, and YA Fiction.

Graphic Novel Book Club News

Graphic Novel Book Club News

Monday, June 05, 2023 at 5:00 p.m. in the Castle (in the Trove) Grades 3-6 Library catalog, ebook Registration required. Register here. Copies of the book will be on hold at the Compass desk (the Trove) to check out. Nat Enough by Marika Scrivan Natalie has never felt that she's enough — athletic enough, stylish enough, or talented enough. And on the first day of middle school, Natalie discovers that things are worse than she thought — now she's not even cool enough for her best friend, Lily! As Natalie tries to get her best friend back, she learns more
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May 21, 2023 11:28 am | by | No Comments
Categories: Book Discussion, Events, Featured, Homepage Kids, Kids, and Library News.
Tags: book clubs for kids, Graphic Novel Book Club, graphic novels, and The Trove.

Short Story Book Series: Spring 2023

Short Story Book Series: Spring 2023

Join White Plains Librarian and Fulbright Scholar Barbara Wenglin via Zoom to explore compelling selections from the rich anthology, Stories of Fatherhood, edited by Diana Secker Tesdell (Everyman’s Pocket Classics, c2014).  In varied settings and cultures, the collection gathers more than a century of timeless stories about having, becoming, loving and losing fathers. A copy of the book is on hold at the Hub/Reference Desk for reading in the Library with circulating copies available to borrow through the catalog. Zoom Register Here for full series and attend when you can! Thursdays from 2:00 – 4:15 p.m. June 8 “My Oedipus
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May 19, 2023 10:00 am | by | No Comments
Categories: Authors & Books, Book Discussion, Events, Featured, Homepage, and Library News.
Tags: Barbara Wenglin, book groups in Westchester, book groups in White Plains, Short stories, short story book discussion series, and short story discussion groups.

May Middle Grade Pick of the Month

May 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! Zachary Ying and the Dragon Emperor by Xiran Jay Zhao Library Catalog: Print Libby: eBook and eAudiobook Zachary Ying has been struggling to fit in at school – hard to do when you’re one of the only non-white kids. But any worries about that are immediately overwhelmed when Zachary’s mother’s soul is stolen – and he gets possessed by the spirit of the first emperor of China!
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May 19, 2023 10:00 am | by | No Comments
Categories: Authors & Books, Featured, Homepage Kids, Kids, and Library News.
Tags: middle grade, middle grade fiction, Middle Grade Pick of the Month, staff picks, and staff recommendations.

June Book Bunch

June Book Bunch

Thursday, June 22nd at 4:30 p.m. Click here to register for our Book Bunch Join Caroline and Donna for a book discussion and trivia game for 4th through 8th graders! We will be reading Yusuf Azeem is Not A Hero by Saadia Faruqi. Yusuf Azeem just entered Middle School and is excited to join the Robotics team. This year Yusuf realizes that it is the twentieth anniversary of 9/11 which has everyone on edge. Tension rises when Yusuf begins to find hateful notes in his locker and becomes a target for a bully who tells Yusuf that the terrorist attacks
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May 18, 2023 10:00 am | by | No Comments
Categories: Authors & Books, Book Discussion, Events, Featured, Homepage Kids, Kids, and Library News.
Tags: book bunch, book discussion, Book discussion for kids, book discussion for middle grade students, and The Trove.

Alex Gino Discusses “Melissa”

Alex Gino Discusses “Melissa”

Author Visit: Alex Gino Discusses Melissa Thursday, June 29th at 7:00 p.m. For Grades 4-12, Families, Adults Registration required. Register here for in-person in Galaxy Hall or here for Virtual on Zoom To both celebrate LGBTQIA+ Pride Month in June and to call attention to the ever-increasing crisis of censorship and book banning in the country, we are excited to announce that award-winning author Alex Gino will be speaking about their book, Melissa. This author visit program will also be June’s Tweens Talk Banned Books meeting.  Tweens Talk Banned Books is a book club program for grades 4-6 to discuss
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May 18, 2023 10:00 am | by | No Comments
Categories: Authors & Books, Book Discussion, Events, Featured, Homepage, Homepage Kids, Kids, and Library News.
Tags: #WPFreedomtoRead, Alex Gino, author events, banned books, LGBTQ+, LGBTQ+ events in White Plains, Melissa, Pride Events in White Plains, and Pride Month.

May Graphic Novel Pick of the Month

May Graphic Novel Pick of the Month

In this blog, Donna will highlight graphic novels that are great reads! Graphic Novels are intended for readers ages 8 and up. graph·ic nov·el a novel in comic-strip format A first time for everything by Dan Santat Bestselling author and Caldecott Medalist (ages 10-14) Library catalog: Print Libby: ebook A school trip to Europe in the summer? Most kids would be excited, but not Dan. This graphic novel is a memoir of Dan Santat’s middle school years. Dan is seen as a pretty good kid. He stays out of trouble, listens to his teachers and parents, and tries to fly
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May 17, 2023 2:01 pm | by | No Comments
Categories: Authors & Books, Featured, Homepage Kids, Kids, and Library News.
Tags: books for kids, Graphic Novel Pick of the Month, graphic novels, Graphic Novels for kids, staff picks, and staff recommendations.

College and Career Edge Summer Series

College and Career Edge Summer Series

The Edge at the White Plains Public Library is happy to announce our new College and Career Edge series this summer. We'll be using our new Igloo room to host a variety of virtual and in-person programs. In the Igloo, students can experience Virtual Reality (VR) without a headset in the library's newly installed panoramic content room. Views from 360° content and more will be provided in this fun series of programs. Technology installed by Igloo Vision and funded by the Library Foundation/Optimum. College and Career Edge Series: Collegewise We will be hosting the following programs in partnership with Collegewise. These
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May 16, 2023 1:36 pm | by | No Comments
Categories: Events, Featured, Homepage Teens, Library News, and Teens.
Tags: career, college, college admissions, College and Career Edge, College Prep, and The Edge.

Local History: Ina Sugihara Jones

Local History: Ina Sugihara Jones

Ina Sugihara Jones was a Japanese American activist and multi-coalition builder who lived in White Plains from 1977 to her death in 2004. She was born in Las Animas, Colorado in 1919, and moved with her family to Long Beach, California in the 1930s. Educated at Long Beach Community College and the University of California, Berkeley, she was able to “voluntarily” migrate to the East Coast in 1942 and avoid internment in the War Relocation Authority Camps set up after the attack on Pearl Harbor. She was a founding member of the New York branch of the Congress of Racial
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May 12, 2023 11:40 am | by | No Comments
Categories: Featured, Homepage, Library News, and Local History.
Tags: Asian American Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander Month, Ina Sugihara Jones, Japanese American Citizens League, and local history.

Picture Book Pick of the Month

Picture Book Pick of the Month

Picture Books are for all children!   In this blog, Donna will highlight great picture books old and new. Noor and Bobby by Praline Gay-Para, Illustrations by Lauranne Quentric (ages 4-7) Translated from French by Alyson Waters Library catalog: Print Libby: ebook What immediately grabbed my attention was the sweet illustration of a boy holding a dog on the cover. This illustration is simplistic in nature, but the story it tells is multi-layered. There are certain subjects that are hard to discuss with younger children and that is exactly why we need books like Noor and Bobby. The author never uses
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May 12, 2023 10:49 am | by | No Comments
Categories: Authors & Books, Featured, Kids, and Library News.
Tags: books for children, Noor and Bobby, picture books, staff picks, and staff recommendations.

Beautiful Bilingual Books, Part 9

Beautiful Bilingual Books, Part 9

LINDOS LIBROS BILINGÜES, Parte 9 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 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 puede disfrutar practicando sus destrezas en ambos idiomas con estos libros. Bedtime for Baby Shark / A la cama Bebé Tiburón, by John John Bajet. Library Catalog An adaptation of the
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May 10, 2023 10:00 am | by | No Comments
Categories: Authors & Books, Featured, Homepage Kids, Kids, and Library News.
Tags: Bilingual, Bilingual books, books for children, picture books, spanish books, staff picks, and staff recommendations.

Discover Aspen Discovery!

Discover Aspen Discovery!

We are pleased to inform you that our new all-inclusive catalog is now available. Previously, if you wished to search for titles in all formats (that is, books, ebooks, and movies), you would have had to conduct a search not only in our catalog, but also in Libby, hoopla, and others. Now with Aspen Discovery, one search is all it takes, and you'll see search results from all our content providers presented at once. In addition to “one stop shopping” when it comes to title searches, Aspen Discovery also provides enriched content. Overall, it was designed to provide a much
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May 10, 2023 10:00 am | by | 2 Comments
Categories: Director's Corner, Evergreen, Featured, Homepage, and Library News.
Tags: Aspen Discovery, catalog, Library Catalog, and library resources.