November is National Native American Heritage Month. What started at the turn of the century as an effort to gain a day of recognition for the significant contributions the first Americans made to the establishment and growth of the U.S., has resulted in a whole month being designated for that purpose. The American Library Association… View more
Beloved actor, author, and activist George Takei is many things to many people; Sulu, helmsman of the U.S.S. Enterprise on Star Trek, Broadway performer, groundbreaking activist for LGBTQIA+ people as well as Asian and Asian Americans, and author of the bestselling They Called Us Enemy, a graphic memoir of his childhood in the American concentration camps during… View more
With our community working hard to stay home and healthy, it might be difficult to figure out what to read next! Check out this Childrens Fiction Series List and start a new series for yourself or as a family read aloud. This list includes the series name as well as the first title in the series to… View more
What’s All the Hoopla?- Elementary Edition Hoopla is an online resource you can use from the comfort of your couch. To use it, simply go to the Cedar Rapids Public Library website (crlibrary.org), click on Resources and Services and select Hoopla. Once there you’ll be prompted for your library card. Log in as a Cedar… View more
I have just finished the latest Erik Larson book The Splendid and the Vile. It’s about the first year in Winston Churchill’s premiership. That year coincided with the London Blitz where German bombers pelted London and other British cities with bombs for weeks. I really like Larson’s works. He brings history alive and presents things in… View more
Ladies, gentleman, and non binary friends- I have news. Winter is here. We can deny it all we want, but we know it is just around the corner. This time it is not playing by any rules either. I don’t think I have ever before seen fall leaves on top of winter snow. Have you?… View more
As we wrap up another wonderful year at the Cedar Rapids Public Library, we would like to express our gratitude to our patrons, our volunteers, our community partners, and our donors for their endless support. You have walked with us on our mission to serve as a beacon of literacy to those in our community… View more
Inspired by the infamous rebuking of Senator Elizabeth Warren while reading the words of Coretta Scott King during the confirmation hearings of then-Senator Jeff Sessions, author Chelsea Clinton introduces 13 women in “She Persisted” who have shown persistence throughout American history. The women she chose to include this book are varied in race and career… View more
How do we wake up and relate to other cultures? I was culturally slapped in the face (and literally slapped in the face) at a Pow-Wow at the Lac du Flambeau reservation in northern Wisconsin in 1991 when I was 15. I had been up there that summer to work for the Department of Natural Resources… View more
The world we live in requires solutions. This is something one comes to realize as an adult; simply talking about issues or social problems are nary an answer to tangible change. How do we recognize that we are capable as humans of directing the energy that flows through society, how do we find importance in… View more
