Posts by Jeremy Czerw

If you are graduating middle or high school this year, your summer freedom and the next stage of your life probably seem about a million miles away right now. You've probably got schoolwork, friends, parents, and a hundred other things to think about before the school year ends.

Next month the world celebrates Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day. Think that couldn't have much to do with a great, funny teen novel? Then you just haven't read Lauren Yanofsky Hates the Holocaust. Yet.

You may not know (really, it's OK; I didn't either until I looked it up) that September is Food Allergy Awareness Month. If you're looking for a science topic for that back-to-school project, or just want to better understand a friend or family member with a food allergy, there are tons of great resources here at the Library.

And if you like your learning in comic form, check out Ayun 

Do you love to read? Want to hang out, enjoy free snacks, and learn about great new books for teens and tweens? Check out our book clubs at Battery Park City!

Tween Book Club meets Thursday, September 5th. Our next book has a princess, a talking frog, and lots of laughs.

Friday, September 6th is the fall kickoff for

Perhaps it's because audiences for poetry are a bit smaller than some of the other genres I'm drawn to, but whenever I finally get around to reading a poet others have recommended to me, it seems like knocking on the door to a little club of sorts. When the poet is as interesting as David Shapiro, one hopes to return to that door again and again.  

Shapiro is one of many distinguished contributors to the new journal Bridge, which promises "collaborations between poets, 

If you're ready for the warmer, laid-back days of summer, you're not alone. We've had a brutal winter in New York, and everyone's sick of avoiding the miserable winds, freezing slush piles, and long, gray evenings of this icy time of year. 

So, a thought exercise.  Pretend it's summer already.  Life is awesome, and you need something fun, fast and funny to read.  Pick up

My copy of Life just arrived, and while it made me doubly sad to have missed NYPL's recent evening with Keith Richards, the book more than lived up to its excellent reviews and all the prepublication hype. Any fan of rock music or great biography (and those of us who love both) should find something to delight in here. 

As 

For true fans of the inappropriately hilarious, a joke just isn't any good unless a baby ends up blenderized, shooting alien pods out of its mouth, or terrorized by an overtly cynical bunny rabbit.  Ahh, what a disgusting life we lead, laughing at poor helpless babies!  We may be few in number, but we happen to be in good company: some of today's most clever graphic novelists and writers share our enthusiasm for the robustly rotten, and you owe it to yourself to check out their work.  So if your humor makes others cringe, cry, or demand your 

Ben volunteers at the Battery Park branch and is an expert on all things Rock! Here are two of his recent picks.

Licensed to Ill - Beastie Boys

I am Ozzy - Ozzy Osbourne

Ozzy’s dad thought his son was either going to do something amazing with his life or end up in jail. He was right: before the age of 18 

Gabriel is a man with a plan: to build his resume by volunteering at the library, and at the same time parlay all of those visits into foursquare mayorship.

Boy Meets Boy is a highly unusual book because it incorporates the romantic plotline used in most teen novels with a new and refreshing look at the genre itself.

Levithan replaces the usual boy-meets-girl scenario with charming insight into the lives of gay high school students in an accepting, almost utopian American small 

For bold, nuanced arrangements, classic songwriting chops, and the richness of gospel-inflected singers working together in perfect harmony, get your ears to Philadelphia.  Well, actually you don't have to leave New York--just listen to The O'Jays, one of the classic 1970s groups that developed Philly Soul.  A stylistic precursor to disco, the Quiet Storm sound, and smooth jazz, Philly Soul is rich, layered, and really, really hard not to dance to.