Birmingham Public Library Blog

By Gelenda Norman | Youth Department , Central Library  The Birmingham Public Library is putting the spotlight on the next generation as it prepares to host its third Read-In for Justice virtual event at 10:00 a.m. on Saturday, Aug. 8. “Read-In for Justice: Let the Children Speak,” is the theme for the third edition of BPL’s popular monthly series in which people from the community read books on the subject of race and social injustice. The event will pay tribute to 1963, when the call to desegregate Birmingham went out. Civil rights leaders gathered from time to time strategizing and making plans to protest the discrimination against blacks in business and in everyday life. The plans included non-violent protests. In 1963, the plan was to enlist children to march throughout the city in protest of segregation. Thus, the Children’s March came to be. Jahman Hill & Eric Marable, Jr., founders of The Flourish Alabama and past participants of BPL’s Bards & Brews, held a ...

What : Intro to Game Design When:  Monday to Friday, August 3-7, 2020 (6th and 7th Grades Where : Girls Inc. online class; register at this link Details:  Intro to Game Design  is a code-based camp designed to support girls who are interested in developing computer science skills. The camp is funded in part by a $6,000 grant the Birmingham Public Library received from NCWIT AspireIT. There are still 10 spots left as of Friday, July 31. Participants must get a waiver signed by their parents. The registration deadline is noon Sunday, August 2.  To register, go to    https://forms.gle/vfa3jQwMJ7y3gKnQ7   Intro to Game Design will be offered August 3-7 for 6th and 7th graders participating in a virtual camp hosted by Girls Inc. of Birmingham. The code-based camps will help participants gain a new set of digital and technological skills.  Students will be introduced to more basics of Scratch coding using CS First and transition to its application with...

By Andrei T. Jones | Five Points West Regional Branch Library  As youngsters we’ve all had high aspirations of what profession we’d like to take on once we're all grown up. I wanted to be a postman, but reality happened and my career path was altered (in a good way). In the picture book Who Will I Be, Lord?  a young girl ponders the future as to what profession she would like to assume once she is all grown up. As she ponders this question, her unique family history is revealed through memories and shared stories passed down from previous generations of relatives. Each family story described is rich in culture, history, pride, and education. These unique family stories ultimately define who she is and what path she will ultimately take. Who Will I Be, Lord? was written by Vaunda Micheaux Nelson , an award-winning African American author of children’s and young adult books, and illustrated by Sean Qualls . This fun little picture book was a great read with excellent i...

Birmingham City Jail docket showing the arrests of John Lewis and other Freedom Riders, May 17, 1961 By Jim Baggett | Central Library John Lewis , the congressman and civil rights icon whom the nation is mourning this week, was arrested more than 40 times. Such is the life of an activist. One of those arrests happened in Birmingham. On May 17, 1961, three days after the first group of Freedom Riders were attacked and beaten at the Birmingham bus station, Lewis and eight other students arrived in Birmingham as the second wave of the Freedom Rides . The Birmingham police took the students into “protective custody” and put them in the jail. The students went on a hunger strike and sang spirituals to keep their morale up (and to irritate the jail guards). Apparently unsure of what to do with the students, Birmingham’s notorious police commissioner, Eugene “Bull” Connor , and five police officers loaded them into two cars and personally drove them back to Tennessee. Lewis sat in...

By Jennifer Hancock | Central Library For those of us who grew up on the Scooby Doo Mysteries , this series of books reintroduces us to the characters we loved. Sixteen-year-old Daphne and Velma, from Mysteries Inc., have recently resumed their friendship from childhood and are once again solving mysteries in their hometown of Crystal Cove. While the cartoons focused entirely on the present, these books give us background on the characters—their family dramas, problems, and insecurities. You get to see Daphne trying to reestablish her relationship with an absent but famous and wealthy mother. You see Velma dealing with the loss (and then recovery) of her family home and a father suffering from severe depression. Even Shaggy, the laid-back, always hungry guy with the huge Great Dane, is found to have a rough home life with a father who never sees Shaggy as "good enough." It is intriguing to think that the characters we watched as kids were probably battling some of the sa...

                              A lifelong fan of reading, Chandra Sparks Splond waited until adulthood before stepping out on faith to  publish her first book in 2007. It was quite a debut: Her young adult novel, Spin It Like That, was chosen as a Popular Paperback for Young Adults by the  Young Adult Library Services Association . Now 13 years later, Splond is a veteran author, editor, speaker and blogger. This month, she released her 17th book,  Speak   is a timely book given what is happening today. The main character is a 15-year-old boy finding his voice amidst the backdrop of a pandemic and racial unrest happening across the United States. You can find information about Speak by clicking at this link Ebook: https://amzn.to/32JOrF9   https://amzn.to/2CUytNL In a Q & A with the Birmingham Public Library PR Department, Splond talked about what inspir...

By Jonathan Newman | Avondale Regional Branch Library  The debut novel by California native Chelsea Bieker, Godshot , is a worthy entry into the feminist tradition of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid's Tale and Educated by Tara Westover. Bieker writes with a convincing, clear voice of how people can be deceived and misled by those in authority. Set in the same area where Bieker grew up, the small town of Peaches, California, is devastated by the lack of rain. The son of a former minister, Pastor Vern becomes a religious cult leader and de facto ruler by his apparent ability to call down a rainstorm. This one-time occurrence is enough to convince the economically depressed community to accept him and his increasingly bizarre “assignments” for the females and teenage boys in his congregation. Vern has a mysteriously vacant recent past and a wife and daughter complicit in his "ministry." Isolated and indoctrinated, his followers include the mother and grandmother of t...

By Cheryl Newsome | Arts, Literature and Sports Department | Central Library They say you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover (and you shouldn’t—but I confess I’ve done it more than once). My advice is, don’t pass up a book because it is written with a younger audience in mind. There are a lot of good young adult books out there worth reading—books with interesting characters and attention-grabbing storylines. All the Earth, Thrown to the Sky by Joe Lansdale is definitely one of those books. What would you do if you lived in the Dust Bowl during the Great Depression and you suddenly lost both parents? The farm is about to be repossessed by the bank and there’s little to eat as the crops have been beaten down by dust storms? Jack Catcher decides it’s time to move on. Where, he isn’t sure, but he can’t stay in Oklahoma anymore. He joins up with his neighbors, Jane Lewis and her younger brother Tony, and they "borrow" a deceased neighbor’s old car and take to ...

By Perdeta Long | North Birmingham Regional Branch Library   The Defiant Ones is for all men and women who stand up to and against racism and still do the right thing. During these times of civil unrest, I go to movies to find peace, friendship, love, and hope in mankind. I know this is a lot to ask of a movie, but movies are a way to escape, to get lost in the moment, and a way of seeing things differently through other eyes and points of view. The movies listed will all show us that compassion, love, and respect can bring us together, no matter our color, religion, or social or economic status. The Defiant Ones ( 1958) Sidney Poitier, Tony Curtis John "Joker" Jackson who is White, and Noah Cullen who is Black, are chained to each other after escaping while on their way to prison. They hate each other but they need to help each other to succeed in their intent of going north to jump on a train and reach freedom. Events that follow will force them both to make deci...

Lauren Bailey, author of Finding Me Beneath the Kapok Tree. Lauren Bailey, an artist and first time author from Birmingham, has answered the Birmingham Public Library Local Authors Reading Challenge. Bailey, a participant of the 2018 BPL Local Authors Expo, is the author of "Finding Me Beneath The Kapok Tree." This heartwarming children's book chronicles the journey of a baby elephant who searches for an identity all his own. Click on the link of Bailey reading her book here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zID--hVFeik&t=4s  In a Q&A with BPL’s PR Department, Bailey shared what inspired her to write the book, which the talented artist illustrated herself. BPL: What is “Finding Me Under the Kapok Tree” about?  Bailey: Finding Me Beneath The Kapok Tree is a heartwarming children's book that chronicles the journey of a baby elephant who searches for an identity all his own. Through his journey of self-discovery he learns that everything he nee...

On July 21,  Avondale Regional Branch Library  began hosting the   Avondale Neighborhood Interview Series , a set of weekly interviews with community members representing non-profits, businesses, and the arts in the Avondale area. In a Q&A interview with BPL’s Public Relations Department, host Joan Inman talked about what inspired the weekly interview series and gave a sneak preview of some of the upcoming guests.   

As black marchers held a peaceful civil rights march in Greensboro, Ala. during the summer of 1965, 18-year-old S. “Mac” McEachin Otts, stood on a street curb holding a tire iron in his hand, ready to join an angry mob of whites preparing to attack them. As he glared defiantly at the black marchers, Otts remembered comments his grandmother told him at age 7 after chastising him for laughing with her black servants who greeted him at her front door: "You are better than them. Don't forget it," his grandmother whispers to “Mac” and pointing at her black servants. For the rest of Otts' life, his grandmother's words haunted him. They are the inspiration behind his powerful book, Better Than Them: The Unmaking of an Alabama Racist, published by New South Books in 2014. Author S. McEachin Otts In Better Than Them , Otts looks back at how regret of his actions that memorable day in 1965 transformed his life. He examines unspoken shame of his slave-ho...

As a Grow with Google Partner, the Birmingham Public Library invites you to tune in to a special live-stream for job seekers. “Use Google Tools to Help Land Your next Job” will air via the video conferencing site Zoom from 11:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. central on Wednesday, July 22, 2020. Register to participate by clicking here goo.gle/GrowOnAirJuly22 Participants in the July 22 workshop will learn how to use Google tools to find their next job. Products to be discussed will include Job Search on Google, G Suite (Sheets & Docs) and Google Meet. Those who participate will also receive a virtual kit to help in their job search. BPL hosted a similar job seekers workshop with Google last Wednesday, July 15. BPL will host a Grow With Google workshop on how to write a resume next Wednesday, July 29, from 11:00 a.m. to noon.  BPL was the first Alabama public library to host a Grow With Google event , hosting an all-day series of computer workshops led by Google instru...

. By Catherine Frey | BPL Director of Development  The Birmingham Public Library (BPL) is pleased to announce we are the recipients of a $5,000 grant from the Community Foundation of Greater Birmingham to help our metro area response to COVID-19 pandemic. In March, the Community Foundation suspended its regular grant process to dedicate those resources to focus on COVID-19 Emergency Response grants . The grant enabled BPL to expand its library digital collection to benefit Birmingham residents - particularly students, job seekers, and small business owners. This effort originated from discussions with the Birmingham City School System about ways to provide access to BPL’s digital resources so students can complete summer reading assignments. As a result, BPL added 162 eBooks and audiobooks to its digital collection, all of which are available through the Overdrive application. These electronic books were ordered and immediately made available to Birmingham city studen...

Background: The BPL Virtual Resources Spotlight is a new blog highlighting the Birmingham Public Library’s vast free online resources available to serve the public. Today, we spotlight Cordell Tindell (C.T.) Vivian, a veteran civil rights leader who died at age 95 last Friday. The Birmingham Public Library is ALWAYS open 24/7 through our FREE online digital resources. For more about BPL’s virtual resources, click on  http://www.bplonline.org/virtual  Want to learn more about the Rev. C.T. Vivian, a civil rights trailblazer who died at age 95 last Friday? Vivian is among the historical figures available in  BPL’s African American Database , which was featured in our BPL Virtual Resources Spotlight last week. Although not as widely known today as Congressman John Lewis, the Alabama-native who died of cancer at age 80 last Saturday, Vivian had a major influence on Lewis. The two first met when Vivian as a young minister helped mentor Lewis when he was a memb...

By Joan Inman | Avondale Regional Branch Library Beginning next week, Avondale Library’s Adult Department will be hosting Neighborhood Interview Series, a set of interviews with community members representing non-profits, businesses, and the arts in Avondale and the surrounding neighborhood. Hosted by Avondale Library librarian Joan Inman, the series is in conjunction with the library’s mission to create community partnership within the neighborhood, promote the spectacular public services in the area, and to discuss how others are operating both professionally and personally during COVID. “I’ve wanted to create this project for a while now,” says Joan, “but especially now in our ‘new normal’ I feel that it's even more important to extend these branches of communication, especially at such a weird, unsure time in the world.” The series will kick off with its first interview with Susan Crow, executive director of Workshops Inc. , on Tuesday, July 21, at 10:00 a.m., via the ...