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ImaginOn Hosts 2024 Summer Exhibit: Storyland

May 24, 2024

Beloved children’s books will come alive as Storyland: A Trip Through Childhood Favorites opens at ImaginOn on May 25 and runs through Sept. 7.

Storyland, a new exhibit built by Minnesota Children’s Museum, provides imaginative, book-based experiences for children, and models early literacy experiences to parents and other adult caregivers.

Storyland transforms seven award-winning picture books – The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter; The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats; Where’s Spot? by Eric Hill; If You Give a Mouse a Cookie by Laura Numeroff; Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by Bill Martin Jr. and John Archambault; Abuela by Arthur Dorros; and Tuesday by David Wiesner into three-dimensional play and bi-lingual (English and Spanish) learning environments that highlight the six pre-reading skills: disposition to read, print awareness, letter knowledge, sound awareness, vocabulary, and narrative skills and comprehension.

Admission to the exhibit is free. The exhibit is open during ImaginOn building hours: Monday-Thursday from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m., and Friday-Saturday from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m. (ImaginOn is closed on Sundays from Memorial Day to Labor Day for summer hours.) For more information, call 704-416-4600 or visit imaginon.org.

Information for Groups:

Can I bring a group? Yes! Groups are welcome to visit the exhibit after noon, Monday-Saturday. There is a maximum number of 30 children and one adult chaperone for every eight students. Reservations are neither required nor accepted and entry into the exhibit is always on a first-come, first-served basis. However, if you wish to combine your visit to the exhibit with any other building-wide activity, a group visit booking is required. You can make a request at imaginon.org/calendar/group-visits.

Can a group make a reservation to visit the exhibit? No, all visits to the exhibit happen on a first-come, first-served basis. Families are encouraged to take advantage of Family Time if your schedule allows. (See below for details.)

Is there a time when the exhibit is open just for families? Yes! Family Time for the exhibit is every Monday through Saturday from 9 a.m. – noon. During this time, the exhibit is open just for children with their parents/caregivers (Limit 5 children per adult).

Can children visit the exhibit by themselves? Children under age 8 must be always with a caregiver. Caregivers should be at least 12 years old and mature enough to follow ImaginOn rules and guidelines. Chaperones are required for all groups visiting ImaginOn and the exhibit.

What if the exhibit is full when I arrive? Because visitor safety is our top priority, admittance into the exhibit is limited. This allows guests the ability to fully explore the exhibit at their own pace. If the exhibit is “full,” we have a queuing area where visitors can wait to enter the exhibit on a first-come, first-served basis. We have suggested activities to pass the time while you are in line.

The summer exhibit at ImaginOn is funded through the Library’s Humanities Endowment Fund, with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Long-time issue of reparations for African Americans persists

June 13, 2024

This blog was written by Lawrence Turner, adult services librarian at South County Regional Library

 

When people think about reparations, they immediately think about people who've been dead for 100 years, said bestselling writer Ta-Nehisi Coates. He writes that attitude should change. Clearly understanding reparations is the way to start.

 

Reparations is defined as making amends for a past wrongdoing by apology, money, or otherwise. The challenge to enact the concept is to take a long view to understand and to take appropriate actions. As such, the United States would have to make major concessions for its generations-long practice of slavery. 

 

Attempts to rectify the enslavement of African Americans with their descendants were  enacted with government policies during Reconstruction, after slavery’s official end. The endeavor was short-lived and was replaced with decades of Jim Crow laws. Returning to Coates’ position, he wrote in his book, We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy, reparations would lead the nation to a spiritual renewal. Undertaking a “full acceptance of our collective biography and its consequences—is the price to see ourselves squarely.” 

 

To the question if the act would cause division, he answered the country is already split by a wealth gap acquired without comment. The result is “that American prosperity was ill gotten and selective in its distribution. What is needed is an airing of family secrets, a settling with old ghosts…a healing of the American psyche and the banishment of white guilt.” 

 

Of course, reparations could not take place without strong public support. It is not there. That the issue of reparations has lingered for many years can be attributable to racial differences. 

 

The Pew Research Center in a 2021 poll found 77 percent of Black Americans favored some form of reparation for descendants of enslaved people while white support was at 18 percent. 

 

A Public Radio article in 2023 echoed the Pew Research Center polls. Yale social psychologist Michael Kraus said, "A majority of our sample (research published in an academic journal) tends to think that we've made steady progress towards greater equality in wealth between families, so between black and white families…That is totally inconsistent with reality." In contrast, some communities concede inequality is a concern with examples in the state of California and a dozen cities nationwide. They are hosting initiatives to promote federal reparations.

 

The Library has several titles covering this issue with historical and political accounts but one new book approaches it as a fiction story. Acts of Forgiveness is a new novel released this year about a new federal reparation program and the impact it has on one family. In an essay about the book, writer Maura Cheeks wrote, “The idea that the United States could ever collectively support a national reparations policy for Black people seemed, well, the stuff of fiction.”

 

She decided  to write about reparations after researching the racial wealth gap with its startling statistics. Cheeks essay included, “the Federal Reserve’s 2022 Survey Consumer Finances (found) the typical white family has about six times as much wealth as the typical Black family, despite the fact that between 2019 and 2022 the typical Black family’s wealth rose at about twice the rate of the typical white family’s during that same period.”

 

Debates and arguments in print about this complex topic may be found in this booklist.

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Full STEAM Ahead: DigiLit for Lifelong Learning

October 26, 2023

By Laura Cavette 

As October draws to a close, Charlotte Mecklenburg Library's STEAM Month has ignited a passion for science, technology, engineering, the arts, and mathematics. While this month-long event offers a diverse array of learning activities, it's worth noting that the Library's digital literacy resources are available year-round. More than just a series of classes, DigiLit is the library's dedicated digital literacy brand, designed to equip learners with essential skills for the digital age.  

Whether you're aiming to craft captivating social media graphics and event flyers through our Canva classes, harness the power of cloud-based storage in Getting Started with Google Drive, or dive into the realm of data organization and insightful chart creation with our Excel classes, DigiLit offers a variety of opportunities for learning and growth.  

Taught by live instructors, our classes cover a range of topics beyond Canva, Google Drive, and Excel, available both on Zoom and at some Library locations. Explore the full schedule of upcoming DigiLit classes by clicking here.  

Visit DigiLitCLT.org for more information.