Welcome Back!

 Welcome back to an exciting new school year!  The Passages Academy Library team is ready to provide innovative and social-emotional based student programming for our court-involved students.  As we celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month we'll explore the life of Frida Kahlo and how in the early 20th century she managed her social-emotional well-being by using self-portraits or art therapy to alleviate and/or mitigate her daily pain.  Self-care in any form is vital.  Stay tuned . . . great literacy is on the horizon!--Jamila Abdulrashid

Programming Spotlight: Mindful Coloring

On Tuesday, May 30  and Wednesday, May 31, the library hosted mindful coloring workshops led by Passages’  school psychologist Rebecca Fernandez.  All groups were invited and Ms. Fernandez played calming, ambient music throughout and encouraged participants to reflect on the experience after they had 15-20 minutes of practice.  Everyone present was noticeably calmer.  

Students received gifts of coloring books and mindfulness techniques for teens from our generous partners at LIT.  Most participants seemed eager to continue to practice mindful coloring to release stress and manage anxiety. --Jessica Fenster-Sparber

Trip Report: NYPL’s SNFL Teen Space

On Wednesday, May 24, Belmont’s Rising Ground group visited the New York Public Library’s gorgeous new teen space at their SNFL branch and had a joyful experience there.  Ricci Yuhico, John Grafton, and Cacau Araujo made  everyone feel welcome and connected.  Music was played, library cards were received, books checked out, and smiles seen on all faces. One student exclaimed at the end of our visit “I’m dead gonna come back here and bring my girl.” --Jessica Fenster-Sparber

Love Radio by Ebony LaDelle

 Dani has never been in love and doesn’t know if it can ever happen to her.  Prince is the most popular guy at school and has had a crush on Dani for years while he was also serving as a love guru on a local radio show, Love Radio.

Both high school seniors now, Prince tells Dani he can make her fall in love with him in three dates - will she give him the chance to win her heart?  Set in Detroit with well-developed characters and alternating perspectives, teens looking for a romance read will enjoy this one.

The publisher has made Julia E. Torres’ nine page curriculum guide available here for teachers wanting to engage students in reading contemporary YA literature.  --Jessica Fenster-Sparber

Programming Spotlight: Dance Africa

                                                            image credit: BAM website

Ms. Bespalova and Ms. Ikawa in collaboration with Ms. Fenster-Sparber Ms. Tamika and the NSD staff arranged a trip for Richmond Hill to go to BAM to see the 46th annual Dance Africa Festival.  

We were in good company with 2,000 people in the audience dancing in their seats and enjoying the show! This year’s production featured music and dance from Ghana entitled “Golden Ghana: Adinkra, Anase and Abusua.” During the introduction, we learned that the people of Ghana welcome visitors with the wonderful word “Akwaaba” which literally translates as welcome! The students also enjoyed call and response with the words “ago," and "ame” which were first uttered from the BAM stage by Baba Chuck Davis, the founding father of Dance Africa. “Ago” means "attention" and “ame” means "you have my attention."  Well, Dance Africa certainly grabbed our attention! --Lori Ikawa

Programming Spotlight: BAM's Word. Sound. Power. 2023

 On Wednesday, April 26th Belmont’s St. John’s group had front row seats for BAM’s annual celebration of poetry and hip-hop called Word. Sound. Power.

This year’s performance highlighted the griot as emcee with the ever-fresh artist-poet Baba Israel in that role.  Students’ favorites included  Dahlak Brathwaite, Helixx C. Armageddon, Silent Knight, and Pri the Honey Dark.  

Brilliant, heavy, inspiring, and hard-hitting,  and just when we  thought  the show couldn’t get any better it found new ways to amplify the messages we all needed to hear.

Even better yet, the following week, Jayson P. Smith visited with our students and led a creative writing workshop which brought us back to Armageddon's "James Baldwin."
A language-rich SEL-grounded experience indeed.--Jessica Fenster-Sparber

Duolingo

 

All Passages students -  secure, limited and non-secure -  now have access to Duolingo. The free application allows students to use their Passages Academy Google Classroom credentials to log in, sign up for one of the 40+ languages, and begin their journey to learning a new lingo.

Did I mention it’s all free and accessible through their chromebooks!  Big thank you to Mr. Garvey for making it happen.– Claudio Leon

Connections 2023: A free guide for formerly incarcerated people in New York City

 

This excellent and important guide entitled Connections has been around for a long time and this new edition is the best one yet.  It has wonderful artwork and opening narratives by the  powerful and brilliant voices of Grace Detrevarah, Kelley Harnett, and Terrence Coffie. 

 

If you, or those you work with are now incarcerated, or have been, this is the single most important guide to read.   And note if you’re reading this on a digital device, you can access Connections  here, free from the New York Public Library. 

 

The 400+ page guide provides  resources for dealing with Covid-19,  housing,  financial assistance, physical and mental health, addiction, legal and immigration issues,  veterans,   women’s and elder issues,  LGBTQI+ issues,  youth needs,  parents and caregivers’ needs, and very importantly offers resources to help with the job search.

 

Also included is a 2023 calendar, blank pages for notes, and an  index,  with artwork and quotes sprinkled throughout.  Hats off to editor Kate Heenan and the writers for this invaluable volume. Thank you to Sarah Ball and Ricci Yuhico for ensuring it reaches every site at Passages Academy.--Jessica Fenster-Sparber

 

Published: No Matter What I Should Be Myself Fully: An Anthology by Passages' Students at Belmont

Congratulations to our student authors just published by 826NYC in the anthology No Matter What I Should Be Myself Fully.  Out this week and available exclusively at Passages, this volume collects writing crafted with the gifted teaching artist Jaydra Johnson in February as part of our Frederick Douglass interdisciplinary project.  Participants read about Douglass' life in Bolden's biography, then read excerpts from Douglass' autobiography, and finally drafted their own pieces of memoir and poetry to share with the world. --Jessica Fenster-Sparber

Rosa Parks & Claudette Colvin: Civil Rights Heroes by Tracey Baptiste, illustrated by Shauna Grant

You probably know who Rosa Parks was, and it’s likely you’ve also heard of Claudette Colvin.  But did  you know the two women knew each other?  And do you know what teenager Colvin was up to during the time of the 1955-56 Montgomery Bus Boycott?  

In this double biography of the two civil rights figures author Baptiste and illustrator Grant give readers the missing pieces needed to better understand the events of the Montgomery Bus Boycott,  and the brave actions of Parks and Claudette,  all done in comic book format.

Adolescent readers who enjoy comics as well as reading about history and civil rights heroes will enjoy this book as will Social Studies teachers.  --Jessica Fenster-Sparber

Baptiste, Tracey.  History Comics: Rosa Parks and Claudette Colvin.  New York: First Second, 2023.  Print.

Incredible Hulk by Jason Aaron: The Complete Collection

Finally they’ve split themselves apart. The Hulk and Bruce Banner are now two separate beings able to go their separate ways - at least that’s what they think!  After wanting nothing more than to live without the Hulk,  Bruce Banner’s wish finally comes true, only to realize he needs the monster within him more than he expected. 

Meanwhile The Hulk believes his life will be different now that he is rid of Banner,  but   trouble finds them both descending into a pit of madness and suddenly they find themselves intertwined once again through unforeseen circumstances.

 

Can The Hulk and Bruce Banner keep their separate identities? Or will fighting for their individuality destroy everything around them? Any Marvel or Action comic book reader should be sure to pick this one up.--Claudio Leon

Aaron, Jason. The Incredible Hulk by Jason Aaron: The Complete Collection. New York: Marvel, 2017. Print.

Digital Data Security by Heather C. Hudak

This is a well-rounded look at data security written on at a middle school reading level explaining how data breaches happen and how readers can protect themselves. Readers are also given information about digital literacy, and each chapter introduces important vocabulary,  as how to research more about digital data security. The author also explains how to evaluate primary, secondary and tertiary sources.  

Text blocks are broken up by pictures, charts and graphs to highlight information. This book is a great starting point for learning  about digital data security and information literacy.--Claudio Leon

Hudak, Heather C. Digital Data Security. Crabtree Publishing Co. 2019. Print

Frederick Douglass in Brooklyn edited by Theodore Hamm

New York City mayor Eric Adams wrote a note prefacing this account of the towering 19th century figure Frederick Douglass making the book especially relevant and timely to us New Yorkers today.

In his intro the book’s editor provides the reader with context for meeting Douglass through the eyes of the poet Walt Whitman and the “varied reactions to his positions on abolition and black equality thus illustrate the ways in which those issues shaped the city in its formative decades.”  

Each of the book’s chapters highlights a speech Douglass made in Brooklyn between 1859 and 1893 and are fascinating primary sources including contemporary public responses to his ideas.  Thus the reader is given crucial, often painful insight into how Brooklynites viewed issues of equality 160 years ago.  

Footnotes add important context.  Recommended for educators.--Jessica Fenster-Sparber

Programming Spotlight: Percussion Workshops with Mike Ramsey

Mike Ramsey at Bronx Hope 12/22/22 photo credit: Jamila Abdulrashid

Happy 2023! While we are looking forward to what’s ahead in  the new year we didn't want to forget to tell you about last month’s percussion workshops with the brilliant percussionist and music educator Mike Ramsey.  Mr. Ramsey visited with all students in all groups at both of Passages’ non-secure sites, Bronx Hope and Belmont and students drummed their hearts out.--Jessica Fenster-Sparber

14 Ways to Die by Vincent Ralph

After ten years, everyone has forgotten about Jess’ mom. The media no longer covers  what happened back then,  and everyone has gone back to their daily lives. The killer,  however, is still on the loose,  has kept on killing,  and now 13 more victims are dead.  But Jess’ mother was the first and Jess’ life has never been the same. 

Now Jess has a plan to catch her mother’s killer and the whole world is going to be part of it. 

Readers of One of Us is Next, Disappeared or The Female of the Species will very likely enjoy this murder mystery.--Claudio Leon

Ralph, Vincent. 14 Ways to Die. Naperville: Sourcebooks Fire, 2021. Print

Cryptocurrency By Matt Chandler

For the reader looking for a very basic understanding of cryptocurrency, this book provides just that. Written at a 6th grade reading level, Cryptocurrency keeps things very simple covering the history of how this relatively new currency came about,  how it works, its advantages and disadvantages,  and how one acquires and uses cryptocurrencies. 

And finally the book addresses the dangers that have emerged with cryptocurrency’s proliferation.

Students who want to learn about digital currencies and investments should pick up Cryptocurrency.  – Claudio Leon

Programming Spotlight: New Victory Residency + ELA collaboration

This month students at Belmont participated in a New Victory residency program that brought two extraordinary teaching artists from the theatre into our school library for a week.  The gifted teaching artists were Marisol Rosa-Shapiro and Ugo Anyanwu who led the series of workshops at Belmont  which were bookended by two trips to the New Victory theater where we saw productions of both Romeo and Juliet  and The Three Musketeers.  

Our two wonderful teaching artists played theater games with us,  taught us to give compliments and Shakespearean insults,  facilitated the drafting of an original soliloquy, and had us read and recite pieces from the classic texts connected to  the two plays we saw at the New Victory. --Jessica Fenster-Sparber

Harley Quinn: Breaking Glass By Mariko Tamaki, Art by Steve Pugh

A new take on an original… Badgirl? Anti-heroine? You’re never sure where Harley Quinn stands on the spectrum of good - bad. Even in this remake of her original story all the pieces are here - Poison Ivy as just Ivy, The Joker and even Bruce makes an appearance. However that is as far as the similarities go.  In this new story about Harley Quinn the author brings social elements to the table touching on the problems the LGBTQ+ community faces, gentrification, the economic divide,  and even climate change. 

All these topics can’t be addressed at a very deep level;  however this graphic novel is a good way to pique the interest of readers while they get their DC Comic fix.  Readers of the books Birds of Prey,  Ms Marvel,  Nubia and Real One should pick this one up. --Claudio Leon

Tamaki, Mariko & Pugh, Steve. Harley Quinn: Breaking Glass. Burbank: DC Comics 2019. Print

Che Guevara’s Face: How a Cuban Photographer’s Image Became a Cultural Icon by Danielle Smith-Llera

How did one image of the revolutionary leader Che Guevara’s face become so popular?  Students who have seen the iconic image - originally a photo by the Cuban photographer Alberto Korda - may be very interested in this picture book-sized volume. 

The author tells the story of Che’s famous photographic portrait in four chapters that draw the reader in by setting the scene in which the original photo was taken-- a memorial service for the 100 killed and 200 wounded by a 1960 explosion in Havana Harbor that destroyed a ship carrying grenades and munitions.

Using historical photographs as well as Korda’s photographic contact sheet from that day,  author Smith-Llera provides context for this shocking and gruesome moment, inviting the reader to imagine the life of a photographer working in Havana at the time.

The author also includes a summary of Cuban history with many historical photographs,  however other than Korda’s,  the images are not credited within the text.--Jessica Fenster-Sparber

Smith-Llera, Danielle.  Che Guevara’s Face: How a Cuban Photographer’s Image Became a Cultural Icon.  Minnesota: Capstone, 2017.

“Aight, so boom.  Check it.” 

So begins When We Make It narrated by 8th grader Sarai, who lives in Bushwick, Brooklyn.  

It’s the late nineties and Sarai,  who identifies herself as a first-generation U. S. born Puerto Rican, lives with her mother and sister.   The family are continuously on the move and trying to survive while dealing with daily challenges of hunger,  loss of dignity, and basic safety.

Short poem-chapters and searing honesty make this book a highly engaging read for fans of novels in verse and of strong characters in realistic YA fiction.  

Spanish phrases are not translated and text is accompanied by an author’s preface.  Backmatter includes acknowledgements, resources for readers needing support, and a list of poetry that inspired the author in writing her own poem-chapters for this book.  Recommended for middle school book clubs. --Jessica Fenster-Sparber

Velasquez, Elisabet.  When We Make It.  New York: Dial, 2021.

Click here for an educator's guide/discussion guide offered by the the publisher.