Programming Spotlight: Field trip to the Jay-Z exhibit at BPL

photo credits: Jamila Abdulrashid

During September & October 2023, students from Bronx Hope took a trip to visit the Jay-Z Exhibition at the Brooklyn Public Library. On display were various artifacts from the career of the legendary rapper including magazine covers & Grammy Awards. In addition, for a limited time only, any New Yorker with membership to the Brooklyn Public Library can obtain any of the limited-edition Jay-Z library cards.  Click here to see them all.--Jamila Abdulrashid

NYPL's College and Careers Pathways at Passages Academy--Belmont

Would you like to have $1000 to spend toward your postsecondary plans?  Would you be willing to complete 30 library programs and a portfolio of documents to prepare yourself for your postsecondary journey?  Passages students at Belmont learned about the opportunities offered by the New York Public Library’s College and Careers Program last month from the manager of the program itself, Katrina Ortega. 

The “magic money” program, aka ICCAAN, is just one of many ways the public libraries offer support to teens as they consider their options after secondary school.  We can’t thank Katrina enough for personally visiting with all of our students inside Belmont’s school library, building bridges, and signing students and staff up for library cards. --Jessica Fenster-Sparber

Huda F Are You? by Huda Fahmy

This fictionalized memoir  begins  with a confrontation between Huda and her mother who is holding up a mediocre report card and demanding to know where Huda keeps her drugs.

After grabbing the reader’s attention in media res, the story rewinds back to Huda’s move with her mother and four sisters to Dearborn, Michigan.  There the sisters attend  public school for the first time with other hijab-wearing Muslim girls.  

With a heaping dose of self-deprecating humor, this story of an American Muslim teen is highly accessible to fans of Diary of a Wimpy Kid and Raina Telgemeier graphic format memoirs and offers a humorous perspective on one girl’s effort  to fit in and find herself. --Jessica Fenster-Sparber

You can find a seven-page educator's guide, including discussion questions and extension activities from the publisher here.

The Waiting Place: When Home is Lost and a New One is Not Yet Found by Dina Nayeri

This picture-book brings the reader into the world of a Greek refugee camp populated by children from Iran and Afghanistan living in repurposed shipping containers.  The author effectively anthropomorphizes the camp as she writes,   “The Waiting Place doesn’t mind.  It wants more children and mothers and fathers.  It doesn’t want you to visit the nearby lake… to learn your new language, or to work, or build, or learn.” 

The Waiting Place invites the reader to investigate refugee crises past and present.  

Back matter includes a lengthy afterword by the Iranian American author who is a refugee herself, as well as a helpful glossary.

This is an excellent picture book for older readers and a jumping-off point for conversations and explorations of purgatories, asylum, undocumented persons, migration and, immigration,   and may pair well with When Stars are Scattered.  Teachers and facilitators may find engagement materials here, including a six page discussion guide from the publisher.--Jessica Fenster-Sparber