The past few weeks have seen especially scary events around the country. With so much violence in the news, some adults may wonder how to talk about the news with the children in their lives. The Oakland Public Library has compiled a wonderful list of children's and teen books to discuss together as well as online resources to help parents talk about justice, racism, and violence in the United States.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1s0lCA3FlulVhK6DFE2d3uYCipc6ApY8Gn2rMwm6fYqw/edit Continue reading

Linda Richards lead a sing parody workshop with a group of 7-12 year olds.  Click HERE to hear the final creation!

 

Those of you who follow Harry Potter news closely may already know that J.K. Rowling has started releasing tantalizing tidbits about the history of magic around her Harry Potter world. Now, fans know the name of the North American school of magic--Ilvermorny--and where to retreat in the icy winters (I'd choose Brazil's wizarding institute, Castelobruxo).  

Today, Rowling published online the first in a series about North American magic, with more installments each day this week.  Enjoy!

Here are more photos from our exciting Chinese New Year celebration:

As you can see, the afternoon was a festival of art, music and dance.

Jack Liu's brushpainting, Kevin Liu's woodcarving, the Kwan Kung Fu School's martial arts demonstrations, a poetry recitation and Tracy Lin's fan and ribbon dancing were among the riches we enjoyed.

We are indebted to Cristina Li and Maggie Liu for bringing such an array of Chinese culture to our library theater.

Happy Year of the Monkey, everyone!

We celebrated the start of the Year of the Monkey with Chinese dances, music, poetry and visual arts.

Kwan's Kung Fu Masters of Peekskill dazzled us with their Lion Dance. We're sure any evil spirits were driven out of our theater by their gymnastic display. Students and masters of the studio demonstrated martial arts, as well. Check back to see more posts, including (we hope) videos of that lion!

Many, many, many thanks to Cristina Lee who asked if we could host a Chinese New Year celebration and proceeded to organize the entire afternoon!