Sandra Cisneros Has a Prescription For Us
Over forty years after The House on Mango Street came out, Sandra Cisneros is still hearing from readers about how her words healed them. In...
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Borrowed
Brooklyn has so many stories to tell, and a lot of them start at the library. Every other week, “Borrowed” brings you stories that start here and take you somewhere new. We're talking to peo...
Episodes
20 of 125 episodes
Linda Sarsour on Building a Better World
Linda Sarsour is a proud Brooklyn-born Palestinian-American activist, writer, and organizer. She’s spent her career building bridges between...
Julia Alvarez on Bilingualism as a Superpower
So many authors writing across languages and cultures point to Julia Alvarez’s debut novel, How the García Girls Lost Their Accents, as one...
Edwidge Danticat Is Invited to this Party
Celebrations of the nation’s 250th anniversary can feel like a party not everyone is invited to, especially for those whose immigration stat...
Jacqueline Woodson on Telling Stories of our Ancestors
When award-winning author Jacqueline Woodson sat down to write her family’s story of the Great Migration, she wanted to make it accessible t...
Jose Antonio Vargas Redefines America
Jose Antonio Vargas is a journalist, filmmaker, and author of the book Dear America: Notes of an Undocumented Citizen. He came to the US fro...
This Guy Sucked: D W Griffith with Kellie Carter Jackson
Today we’re bringing you a really interesting episode from our friends at This Guy Sucked, a podcast hosted by historian and writer Claire A...
Thresholds: Ayana Elizabeth Johnson on the Future That’s Still Possible
Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson is a marine biologist, climate scientist and activist. Recently, she sat down with Jordan Kisner, of the Thresho...
We are the Environment: Silent Spring’s Enduring Wisdom
When Silent Spring came out in 1962, it was an instant best-seller and led to the establishment of the EPA, as well as the ban of harmful pe...
Molly Crabapple on Making Art in a Turbulent World
Molly Crabapple is an artist and writer who documents the extremes, from nightclubs to war zones. She’s also the author of several books, in...
Art Spiegelman on Resistance, Memory, and Speaking Up
Art Spiegelman is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of the graphic novel Maus, the story of his parents’ experience during the Holocaust. We...
Maus and the Power of Images
Art Spiegelman’s Maus almost single-handedly elevated comics from throw-away inserts in newspapers to a serious literary art worthy of winni...
Book Riot: The Untold Story of Black Librarians
This episode comes to us from our friends at Book Riot ! In this segment, you'll hear Book Riot’s Erica Ezeifedi speak with Rodney Free...
Matt de la Peña on Small Stories and the Power of Perspective
Matt de la Peña is the Newbery Medal-winning author of seven Young Adult novels and five picture books. We talked with him about writing sma...
Meg Medina on Latine Stories and Reading as a Family
Meg Medina is an award-winning author of books for kids and young adults, and she was the 2023-2024 National Ambassador for Young People’s L...
How The Snowy Day Changed Children’s Books
The Snowy Day wasn’t the first picture book to feature a Black child as its beloved protagonist, but it might be the most visible. When it c...
The Legacy of Howard Zinn's Radical History
When Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States came out in 1980, it literally rocked the boat. Instead of starting where most hi...
Reginald Dwayne Betts on Freedom and Poetic Constraint
Reginald Dwayne Betts is a poet, a lawyer, and the founder and CEO of Freedom Reads, an organization with the goal of bringing a library to...
On Reading The Autobiography of Malcolm X in Prison
There are so many reasons to read – and reread – The Autobiography of Malcolm X. But for this episode, we’re revisiting the book with the pe...
N.K. Jemisin on Truth, Education, and Speculation
N.K. Jemisin is a New York Times-bestselling science fiction and fantasy writer. She’s a Brooklynite, the recipient of a MacArthur “Genius”...