What's happening at New York's libraries this August

The city's three library systems — the Brooklyn Public Library, the Queens Public Library, and New York Public Library, which serves Manhattan, the Bronx and Staten Island — all offer free events all year round. And while things may slow down a bit in August, there is still plenty to do.

Here are some highlights for the month:

BIG EVENTS:

The New York Public Library is hosting a writing workshop with the Brooklyn science fiction writer N. K. Jemison. It’s billed as a “Worldbuilding Workshop,” and aims to help guide you through all the things that go into creating an entire fictional world, like the language of it, the terrain, the people — or other creatures — who inhabit it.

Jemison is, of course, the author of "The City We Became," which is this summer’s Big Summer Book Club pick. You can also hear her speak with WNYC’s very own All Of It host Alison Stewart at the book club’s big event at the Delacorte Theater on Aug. 17.

The workshop takes place in person, Aug. 1, at the Bronx Library Center on East Kingsbridge Road. We are, however, sorry to say it’s been sold out for weeks. You can still sign up for the livestream, though.

The Queens Public Library is offering a peek into the past and possibly the future of New York City, with an exhibit created by the New York Botanical Garden that looks at what New York was like hundreds of years ago, before the skyscrapers, cement and pigeons. It’s called “Before New York,” and it’s on now through Aug. 24 at the central branch in Jamaica. On Aug. 12 they'll also host a lecture by Dr. Eric Sanderson, who created the exhibit.

The Brooklyn Public Library is doing something interesting. At 12 of their branches are spaces where people can make a free, one-hour-long video call to incarcerated family members. The TeleStory program sets people up in a private room with a screen to let you talk to a loved one in any one of 11 state prisons run by the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision. If you’re bringing kids when making your call, the library also provides them with toys and books and someone to help keep them occupied.

BRANCH EVENTS:

Brooklyn’s Jamaica Bay Library is hosting a music workshop and singing circle called Ghanani. The library describes it as based on the tradition of Palestinian women folkloric singing circles. Participants will get lyric sheets for traditional songs in Arabic that also have English transliterations, so even those who don’t share the language can participate.

The East Flatbush Library is hosting a two-week domino tournament starting on Aug. 11. The first-place winner gets a prize, and, of course, the bragging rights of being the best at the bones. Registration is required, and they say come with your partner.

The New York Public library is recording people’s audio stories for StoryCorps project, “We the People.” That’s taking place on different days at the Charleston, Roosevelt Island, Wakefield, Grand Concourse, Stavros Niarchos Foundation and Todt Hill-Westerleigh library branches. You have to be at least 18.

But if you’re not yet older than 18, the Bronx Library Center on E. Kingsbridge Road is holding a teen trivia night on the Haitian Revolution. So you can test your knowledge of the only successful uprising by enslaved peoples in human history that led to the founding of a state. If you find that you know more about, say, Bonaparte Napoleon than François-Dominique Toussaint Louverture, this is your chance to get up to speed. They’ll have snacks.

And in Queens, the Langston Hughes branch in Corona is doing a series they’re calling “Adultin’ August,” which is every Thursday, and the line up for those events include line dancing, a silent disco, and live music.

FOR THE KIDS:

This month, NYPL is inviting kids to build monsters. They’re holding a Monster-Building Creative Writing Workshop, that’s Aug. 3 at the Stavros Niarchos branch Children's Center.

It’s an hour-long workshop presented by the kids writing nonprofit Cosmic Writers, and everyone who comes gets a free copy of their “Monster-Building Handbook”. This is aimed at kids ages 8-12, and you do have to register.

If tutus are more your thing than monsters, you have other options. The QPL is offering two free ballet classes for kids ages 6-11 at the Rockaway Beach Boulevard branch.

For older kids there are also workshops at the East Elmhurst branch on using your voice to address the climate crisis and environmental justice. They’re also hosting a workshop — through the Cosmic Writers workshop — for middle schoolers, inviting kids to create and tell their own utopian and dystopian stories and vision for the nation. That’s at the Bayside Branch.

And then in Brooklyn, two cool things, both for teens: The Williamsburg branch is hosting Saturday Sewing for Teens on Aug. 8, where the library provides sewing machines, instructions and snacks for kids who want to work on their looks for prom, or Comic Con, or anything.

And then on Aug. 18, the Grand Army Plaza main branch is partnering with the Riders’ Alliance for a Future of Commuting Design Contest. Kids can design ways to make the future better for NYC transit – like new train routes, or subway cars you can’t climb on top of, or devices that mute everyone’s phone speaker on the train.