Archives for Featured

Storybook Dancing Fall Events

The Library is happy to (virtually) host the fantastic program, Storybook Dancing, presented by Steffi Nossen School of Dance throughout the Fall. A creative, movement-filled program for young ones to hear stories and then dance them to life! Thursdays, 10:00 a.m., September 10 and 24, October 8 and 22, November 5, and December 3. (link to calendar) Supported by the White Plains Library Foundation. NOTE: To increase security in youth-focused programs, we are now requiring attendees to have a Zoom account to login to the event. Creating an account is easy and free.
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Categories: Events, Featured, Homepage Kids, Kids, and Library News.

How Did I Get Here? Virtual Career Panels

This October the Library will be hosting three career panels on Zoom. Our first panel on October 1st at 6:00 p.m., will feature New York State Assembly person David Buchwald. He will talk about his career in politics and public service. The next two panels on October 13th and 15th, at 4:00 p.m., will have employees from Verisk Financial, an analytics company in White Plains. Their careers deal with coding, product development, user interface design, and, well, analytics. Our fourth career panel on October 22nd, at 6:00 p.m., will feature Randy Altman, owner of Altman Rentals. His company rents production
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Categories: Events, Featured, Homepage Teens, Library News, and Teens.

Stream Jester Jim’s Library Performance

The talented and extremely funny Jester Jim performed live for the Library on Saturday, October 10, juggling knives!, fire!, toilet plungers?! while leaving attendees laughing and amazed. In order to extend the experience so that more White Plains community members could see the show, Jim graciously allowed us to share the recording of the show. Check it out right here, anytime you want! This program was supported by the White Plains Library Foundation.
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Categories: Events, Evergreen, Featured, Homepage Kids, Kids, and Library News.

Peculiar Picks

Peculiar Picks are a selection of odd, funny, interesting, curious, moving, irreverent, and otherwise wonderfully awesome, but perhaps not well known, reads. Peculiar Picks are books for younger readers and their grown-ups, handpicked by the Library's Youth Services Manager, Joshua Carlson. National Dictionary Day is celebrated on October 16. Today’s two Peculiar Picks celebrate words and vocabulary. I may have mentioned a couple times, here or there, that my daughter has an impressive vocabulary. It may seem like bragging (I’ll be honest, I like to brag about it. Just a little.), but I know exactly why her vocabulary is so
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Categories: Authors & Books, Featured, Homepage Kids, Kids, and Library News.

Race Consciousness: Recommended Reading, Part 4

On Wednesday October 21st, Sachi Feris of the blog Raising Race Conscious Children will lead a workshop to help parents and caregivers learn how to talk about race with young children. Each week until the workshop, I’ll share an article or resource to help you begin thinking about some related topics. Recommended Reading, Part 1 Recommended Reading, Part 2 Recommended Reading, Part 3 For our final recommended reading piece, let’s check out a post from Sachi’s own blog: “100 Race-Conscious Things You Can Say to Your Child to Advance Racial Justice.” As you may infer from the title, this post
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Categories: Featured and Library News.

Reads Revisited

When children or their caregivers come to the Library asking for recommendations, I often find myself suggesting some of my favorite books from when I was a kid. There’s something really comforting about rereading an old favorite! I came up with this idea for a blog post series so that our Trove and Edge librarians could recommend some of their favorite childhood stories. I hope that you’ll enjoy reading them as much as I’ve enjoyed rereading! I was the kid that was always reading – in class (when I definitely shouldn’t have been!), in the lunchroom, and I even brought
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Categories: Authors & Books, Featured, Homepage Kids, Kids, and Library News.

STEAM at Home: Flying Dragon

This week we are going to make a dragon fly and learn about how levers work. Materials: Toilet Paper Roll Construction Paper Marker Pencil Ruler Glue Tape Yarn Getting Started: We are going to start by making our dragon. Cut a piece of construction paper so that it covers your toilet paper roll. Use tape or glue to attach it. Next design the head, wings, and tail of your dragon. Cut them out and attach them using glue or tape. You can use a marker to decorate your dragon and draw eyes and a mouth on it. Prepare For Flight:
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Categories: Featured, Homepage Kids, Homepage Teens, Kids, Library News, and Teens.

Virtual Teen Volunteering

Almost everything about the 2020-21 school year is different, and that includes earning community service hours. Usually around this time the fall sessions of the Do Gooders, the Library’s teen community service group, would be well underway. With library services restricted by safety concerns, we’re offering a different opportunity for teens to earn volunteer hours directly through us. We’re collecting book reviews written by teens, to be featured on our website. Teens can submit a book review by filling out this online form; each review is worth one hour, with a cap of 8 hours per person per month. I’d
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Categories: Featured, Homepage Teens, Library News, and Teens.

Halloween STEAM Project: Zombie Dance!

Join us on Zoom for Zombie fun! On October 27th, we will be conducting a fun STEAM activity that raises a zombie using pure magic! It’s really a scientific method that uses static electricity but you can amaze your friends and family with this trick. First, we will read Fright Club by Ethan Long, and then we will work together to try to raise our zombies. If interested, please register for the event because supplies are limited to twenty activity kits. The activity kit includes a balloon, tissue paper, a marker, and a cut out zombie (to trace on the
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Categories: Featured, Homepage Kids, Kids, and Library News.

STEAM at Home: Puking Pumpkins!

Halloween is a time to celebrate creepy crawlies, eat your favorite candies, dance like zany zombies and carve plump pumpkins! Halloween is also the perfect time to show off your creativity! Why not wear black nail polish to bring out the goth in you? Use purple Manic Panic to dye your hair! Wear your ghost or goblin costume and feel free to be a bit ghoulish! Have you ever been to Sleepy Hollow? If not, I highly encourage you to visit Sleepy Hollow with your family this year; it’s a great Halloween destination. You could take pictures of the Old
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Categories: Featured, Homepage Kids, Kids, and Library News.

Halloween Reads

Are you looking forward to Halloween as much as I am? This year we might be limited in our normal Halloween activities due to COVID, but there are still some fun things to do. You can dress up and take photos with your family! In the past two years, I have had fun dressing up as Wednesday Addams and Punk Eleven from Stranger Things Season 2, Chapter 7: “The Lost Sister.” You can also treat yourself to a movie marathon. Some of my favorites include Beetlejuice, Practical Magic, Shaun of the Dead, The Nightmare Before Christmas, and It’s the Great
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Categories: Authors & Books, Featured, Homepage Kids, Homepage Teens, Kids, Library News, and Teens.

National Cookbook Month

With the weather getting cooler, now is a good time to warm our homes with the smells of home cooking. It doesn’t matter if you are a beginner or an experienced cook, if you have all day or only an hour, if you have a sweet tooth or prefer something savory, here is a list of cookbooks containing recipes for everyone to enjoy. Celebrate National Cookbook Month with us and let us know what you're cooking! Jubilee: Recipes from Two Centuries of African American Cooking by Toni Tipton-Martin Library Collection OverDrive and Libby It illustrates the diversity, sophistication and influence
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Categories: Authors & Books, Featured, Homepage, and Library News.

She Writes: Science

This month's collection of titles for our “She Writes” series focuses on the topic of science. We're featuring nonfiction science all written by women. Below you'll find available formats, but we also have a curated list with additional titles in OverDrive that you can checkout here. Find last month's post on graphic novels here. The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert Library Collection: Print OverDrive and Libby: eBook and audiobook “The charm of this book (inasmuch as a book about extinction can have charm) lies in Kolbert's hands-on approach to her subject–searching for Panamanian frogs in the dark,
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Categories: Authors & Books, Featured, Homepage, and Library News.

STEAM at Home: Fireworks in a Jar

Today we are going to do a simple project making fireworks in a jar. This is cool and quite fun to watch, and a simple lesson in liquid density. Materials: Glass Jar or Glass (make sure it is clear) Small Dish Cooking Oil Food Dye (3 or 4 colors) Toothpick Water Getting Started: Fill the glass jar with water, but leave some room at the top. Take your little dish and cover the bottom with cooking oil. Add 3-5 drops of food coloring, keeping the drops separate. Take your toothpick and dab the drops of food coloring to break them
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Categories: Featured, Homepage Kids, Homepage Teens, Kids, Library News, and Teens.

Mindfulness Practices for Teens

It’s an understatement to say that 2020 has been an unusually stressful year so far. This is the perfect time to draw on Mindfulness Practices, a teen program we’ve previously done both on Zoom and in the library. But with school back in session, we thought another scheduled Zoom meeting might not be the best way to help teens relax. Instead, we’re offering a series of three recorded Mindfulness sessions with yoga and Mindfulness educator Cristina Ortiz. You might know Cristina from her previous work as a teacher in White Plains schools. In addition to her certifications as a yoga
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Categories: Featured, Homepage Teens, Library News, and Teens.

Wellness from the Edge: Mindfulness Practices

It’s an understatement to say that 2020 has been an unusually stressful year so far. This is the perfect time to draw on Mindfulness Practices, including techniques to help teens manage stress and promote wellbeing. On this page, you'll find a series of three recorded Mindfulness sessions with yoga and Mindfulness educator Cristina Ortiz. Teens can watch at a time that’s most helpful to them, whether it’s a way to unwind in the evening, or a much-needed break during a stressful day. Cristina has thoughtfully paired each video with a printable page to help teens continue using what they’ve learned
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Categories: Featured, Homepage Teens, Library News, and Teens.

Celebrate Eat Better, Eat Together Month

Food is a delicious part of life, made even more delicious when shared with family and friends. October is Eat Better, Eat Together Month so here you’ll find books to tickle your funny bone and recipes to make you the best chef ever. Read the stories out loud while eating your favorite treats or surprise your loved ones with your new delicious recipes. Either way, may you have “good fun and good eats!” You may think that the biggest benefit of eating together as a family is to ensure everyone has food in their stomachs. However, sharing meals does more
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Categories: Authors & Books, Featured, Homepage Kids, Kids, and Library News.

Diwali: A Celebration of Light

Diwali, or Dipawali, is India‘s biggest and most important holiday of the year. The festival gets its name from the row (avali) of clay lamps (deepa) that Indians light outside their homes to symbolize the inner light that protects from spiritual darkness. This festival is as important to Hindus as the Christmas holiday is to Christians. Over the centuries, Diwali has become a national festival that's also enjoyed by non-Hindu communities. For instance, in Jainism, Diwali marks the nirvana, or spiritual awakening, of Lord Mahavira on October 15, 527 B.C.; in Sikhism, it honors the day that Guru Hargobind Ji,
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Categories: Authors & Books, Featured, Homepage Kids, Kids, and Library News.

STEAM at Home: Human Robot

This week’s STEAM At Home project will teach you a little about coding, without needing a computer. Materials: Printable Scratch Blocks (or you can make your own!) Paper Scissors Tape – scotch and masking tape Pen Another Person Background: Scratch.mit is a website used for teaching simple coding and computational thinking. You drag and drop blocks into your work area to create a program, the coding is done in the background. They use visuals, simple language, and a snapping feature to fit your blocks together, making it easy to write a computer program. You need a computer and internet connection
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Categories: Featured, Homepage Kids, Homepage Teens, Kids, Library News, and Teens.

Race Consciousness: Recommended Reading, Part 2

On Wednesday October 21st, Sachi Feris of the blog Raising Race Conscious Children will lead a workshop to help parents and caregivers learn how to talk about race with young children. Each week until the workshop, I’ll share an article or resource to help you begin thinking about some related topics. Recommended Reading, Part 1 Recommended Reading, Part 3 Recommended Reading, Part 4 This week, I’m sharing a New York Times article: “These Books Can Help You Explain Racism and Protest to Your Kids.” While the article was written in early June, it’s still relevant. Author Jessica Grose interviewed a
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Categories: Events, Featured, Homepage Kids, Kids, and Library News.