Mulberry Street Branch

The Summer Reading theme for 2009, Be Creative, isn't just kids' stuff. Adults need craft time too, so check out our Summer D.I.Y. Series at the Mulberry Street Branch. In the true spirit of D.I.Y., three of our staff members volunteered to learn and teach some crafts. In June we held a Book Art crafting session--participants brought in cardboard cereal boxes and 45 minutes later they held a handmade notebook. The July program saw old t-shirts transformed into useful tote bags, thanks to a simple craft recipe by Amy Sperber from the book Tease (Sarah Sockit, ed.).

Tempted to get your craft on? Please join us for craft number three on August 19 at 6:30, when the most talented crafter on the Mulberry Street staff will show you how to make wearable art from buttons. Gather up all those strays and create a holiday gift for your Aunt Josephine or sister Claire.

Also mark your calendar for the first ever Mulberry Street Book & Cookie Swap Social on Wednesday, September 2 at 6:30. You bring some books and a dozen of your favorite cookies (homemade or store-bought) for trading, and we'll provide the trading floor, the coffee, and raffle prizes! Not a bad way to bookend your summer.

On June 8th at 6:30 PM, please join us at the Mulberry Street Library as author Elaine Weiss talks about her book Fruits of Victory: The Women's Land Army of America in the Great War.

Fruits of Victory covers the virtually unknown story of the the Women's Land Army. From 1917 to 1920 the Woman’s Land Army (WLA) brought thousands of city workers, society women, artists, business professionals, and college students into rural America to take over the farm work after men were called to wartime service. These women wore military-style uniforms, lived in communal camps, and did what was considered “men's work”—that is, plowing fields, driving tractors, planting, harvesting, and hauling lumber. The Land Army insisted its “farmerettes” be paid wages equal to male farm laborers and be protected by an eight-hour workday. These farmerettes were shocking at first and encountered skeptical farmers’ scorn, but as they proved themselves willing and capable, farmers began to rely upon the women workers and became their loudest champions.

On May 27th at 6:30 P.M., the Mulberry Street Branch introduces you to our neighbors from Crosby Street, the Anne Frank Center USA. Established in 1977, the Center provides education and exhibits on the importance of tolerance through the memory of Anne Frank.

Join us to learn more about the Anne Frank Center USA along with information on the life of Anne Frank.

RSVP at the library, by phone at 212-966-3424, or email mulberry_branch@nypl.org. All are welcome.

Learn about Project Sunlight— the first website of its kind in New York State designed to make government transparent and accountable. The website gives to its users unprecedented access to information that government keeps, information that until now has been scattered and difficult to retrieve. The website allows you to easily research bill information, elected officials, donors, lobbyists, special interests, state contracts and uncover the links between them. Presented by a Representative of the New York State Office of the Attorney General.

The program will be held at the Mulberry Street Library on May 6th at 6:30 PM. The library is located at 10 Jersey St., between Mulberry and Lafayette.

Week 3 of National Poetry Month

To a “Friend”? Are you sure he/she is just a friend, Ms. Lowell?

This week The Reader’s Den offers up an Amy Lowell sonnet, originally published in the year 1912. Check out discussion questions after the break, and post a comment if the spirit moves you!

TO A FRIEND by Amy Lowell

I ask but one thing of you, only one,
That always you will be my dream of you;
That never shall I wake to find untrue
All this I have believed and rested on,
Forever vanished, like a vision gone
Out into the night. Alas, how few
There are who strike in us a chord we knew
Existed, but so seldom heard its tone
We tremble at the half-forgotten sound.
The world is full of rude awakenings
And heaven-born castles shattered to the ground,
Yet still our human longing vainly clings
To a belief in beauty through all wrongs.
O stay your hand, and leave my heart its songs!

Click on for questions, and to learn about Amy Lowell: Rock Star. All posts will be read and responded to.  read more »

Week 2 of National Poetry Month: Seeing Things

The Reader’s Den is the NYPL’s online book discussion forum, but during the month of April we’re all about poetry. This week’s poem, City Visions, was chosen with a view to celebrating Immigrant Heritage Week, which starts April 17. It was written by the same poet whose words grace the Statue of Liberty (“Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses…”).

CITY VISIONS by Emma Lazarus

I.

As the blind Milton's memory of light,
The deaf Beethoven's phantasy of tone,
Wrought joys for them surpassing all things known
In our restricted sphere of sound and sight,—
So while the glaring streets of brick and stone
Vex with heat, noise, and dust from morn till night,
I will give rein to Fancy, taking flight
From dismal now and here, and dwell alone
With new-enfranchised senses. All day long,
Think ye 't is I, who sit 'twixt darkened walls,
While ye chase beauty over land and sea?
Uplift on wings of some rare poet's song,
Where the wide billow laughs and leaps and falls,
I soar cloud-high, free as the the winds are free.  read more »

Week 1: Isn’t it Romantic?

Welcome to Poetry Month with the Reader’s Den! Instead of the normal online book discussion this month, each Wednesday we'll post a poem for consideration and discussion. Feel free to use the questions below the poem as a springboard. Post your insights and impressions in the comments, and be sure to check back later in the week to see what others thought.

We begin with a poem by John Keats, composed in the year 1818.

When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain,
Before high piled books, in charact'ry,
Hold like rich garners the full-ripen'd grain;
When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour!
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the faery power
Of unreflecting love—then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think,
Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink.

Discussion Questions:

1. What are the narrator’s strongest fears?

2. Grain, stars, clouds, shadows, shore…why all the nature imagery?

3. How would you interpret the concluding lines?

Continue exploring this poem with a glossary and more:  read more »

Saint Patrick's Day is tomorrow and March is usually the time when I reflect upon my heritage and honor my ancestors' history. Since March is also Women's History Month, I thought I would highlight some of my favorite female American Irish writers who inspire others to write and love great literature.

Born in 1851, Kate Chopin was the daughter of Thomas O'Flaherty, an Irish immigrant and a founder of the Pacific Railroad. Chopin was attuned to the Louisiana lifestyle and role of the submissive housewife, which she herself rejected (even though she eventually married and had six children). These observations were reflected and often criticized in her short stories, poetry, and novels. Though unsuccessful in her own time, The Awakening is now considered a significant work in feminist literature.  read more »

At the Mulberry Street Library, we host a monthly craft program in the Children’s Room called Kids’ Crafts. Children ages 5 years and up are invited to come to the library to work on simple seasonal crafts, from paper plate turkeys in November to St. Patrick’s Day leprechaun puppets in March.

This summer we made all kinds of bug crafts in honor of the Summer Reading Program’s theme, “Catch the Reading Bug." In June, we made bouncy paper caterpillars with colorful construction paper. In July, we made clothespin butterflies with tissue paper and pompoms. And in August, we made bug buttons with our very own Children’s Room button maker!

This fall we've been working on crafts to celebrate the season. In September, we made paper bag backpacks to get ready to go back to school. In October, we did creepy fingerprint art for Halloween. And in November, we'll make leaf rubbings with the last of fall's leaves.

We’ve got the glue sticks, the scissors, the feathers, and the glitter... We hope you’ll join us on the first Wednesday of each month at 4 o’clock for some craft-making fun! Click here for more information about children's programs at the Mulberry Street Library.

As a children’s librarian, my heart beat a little bit faster when Sara Pennypacker’s newest Clementine book, Clementine’s Letter, arrived at the library. I knew I’d have to wait my turn to borrow a copy, but I couldn’t wait to get my hands on it!

Eight-year-old Clementine lives in an apartment building in Boston, with her artist mom, her building superintendent dad, and her baby brother (who she calls different vegetable names because he wasn’t lucky enough to be named for a fruit like Clementine!). And just like the springy red curls on her head, Clementine is always bursting with ideas, whether to give her next door neighbor Margaret a new haircut or to rid her building of pigeons in the Great Pigeon War.

In this third installment in the series, Clementine discovers that her beloved teacher, Mr. D’Matz may be leaving the class to do a research project in Egypt. Clementine is heartbroken at the thought of saying goodbye to her best teacher ever. So when the class is asked to write letters saying why Mr. D’Matz deserves to go to Egypt, Clementine knows that she has to do, for better or for worse…

If you like Ramona Quimby, Junie B. Jones, or Judy Moody, Clementine may be the next spunky girl for you! Click here for more spunky girl book recommendations (PDF) from the Mulberry Street Library.