Pasadena Public Library
We’ve been working hard sprucing up our booklists for Black History Month! In case you weren’t already aware, the library is offering a Black History Month Reading Challenge this year, and all kinds of virtual events all month long, advertised in our special Black History Month Brochure. We have author […]
Today’s Read Around the World Book Club discussion focused on the country of Oman, after we read The Turtle of Oman by Naomi Shihab Nye. The book is a very quiet read, focused mostly on one boy’s love for his country and unwillingness to leave it, and his relationship with […]
To celebrate Native American Heritage Month, our Read Around the World book club for 3rd – 5th graders discussed the exciting middle grade fantasy/adventure book Race to the Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse, published by Rick Riordan Presents. Race to the Sun is set in Albuquerque, New Mexico and also Navajo […]
Today our book club learned a bit about Chiang Mai, Thailand and discussed the book Tua and the Elephant by R. P. Harris. Nine-year-old Tua releases an abused elephant from its chains, but its angry and ruthless owners are on her tail and they’ll do anything to get their elephant […]
This month, the Read Around the World book club for 3rd through 5th graders read and discussed the book Emil and the Detectives by Erich Kästner. (The book is available on hoopla as an eBook.) This is a delightful romp through 1920s Berlin with a bunch of boys who are […]
We had 198 participants in our Zoom coding workshop today! For today’s workshop I walked everyone through a Code.org Hour of Code tutorial on video game design with activities based on the game Minecraft. Kids learned how to code creatures like sheep, chickens, cows, golems, creepers and zombies, to: “spawn” […]
On Friday we read excerpts from the middle grade books that are available as prizes for Summer Reading Challenge participants. Then we explored how those books can teach us something about writing. Hooks To learn about writing a first page that will “hook” the reader, we read the first page […]
At today’s virtual Read Around the World book club meeting, we took a tour of the Sundarbans in West Bengal, India and discussed the book Tiger Boy by Mitali Perkins! Mitali Perkins was born in Kolkata, West Bengal, (also known as Calcutta), which is a few hours’ drive away from […]
Our first coding class for ages 7-12 on May 29 had a total of 115 attendees! 115! Not all of them could be there for the entire time. But still, 115 new or fairly new users were brought to the fountain of free learning and creativity that is Scratch! So […]
We held our first virtual meeting of the Read Around the World book club today, and nine kids joined us and shared their thoughts about the book When Mischief Came to Town by Katrina Nannestad! Click the picture above to be taken to the library’s catalog, or click here to […]