Yvette Cole. Abiba Biao Photos.
Ten-year-old Destiny doesn’t know how she found herself at Harriet Tubman's house, but she makes herself at home anyway. It’s not long until Sojourner Truth arrives, balancing steamy bowls of cornbread on her head. Then Frederick Douglass gets there with a pan of mac and cheese. Rosa Parks, carrying peach cobbler and ice cream, isn't far behind.
As more civil rights leaders and Black activists arrive at Tubman's doorstep, the single meal becomes a spread fit for a family.
Stamford Kindergarten teacher and author Yvette Cole turned the pages of her book Harriet’s Dinner Party in downtown New Haven last Saturday, as the New Haven Free Public Library (NHFPL) launched its Summer Learning Challenge. The challenge, which runs from June 1 to August 18, features a kickoff event at each of the five branches across the city across the first week of June.
“The library is a fun place to be and a fun place to hang out in the summer,” Ives Branch Teen Librarian Emily Raymond said. “I don't think a lot of people realize that we have stuff happening all year round, not just during the school year.”
Ives Branch Teen Librarian Emily Raymond.
The Summer Learning Challenge not only encompasses kids 0-12 years old and teens from 13-18 years old but also adults, ensuring that everyone can have a piece of summer reading fun. This year’s theme is “read, renew, repeat,” highlighting the seemingly infinite cycle of borrowing library books and gaining knowledge.
While children may be in an out-of-school mindset, Raymond said that the challenge seeks to foster learning and undo the negative connotations students have of reading, flipping the script from seeing reading as a scholastic activity solely done during classes to a leisurely hobby that they can tailor to their interests.
With the summer being a busy time for trips and family vacations, the challenge is meant to also show that amusement can come from local libraries.
Raymond highlighted that the program's goal is to emphasize the amount of time spent reading in comparison to the amount of books being read. Instead of kids and teens obsessing about a goal or prioritizing the destination or gloating about the amount of books read, they're instead appreciating the journey of reading.
“It really doesn't matter what you're reading,” she said. “It can be a magazine, it can be a comic book, it can be a novel, it can be picture books; [even] being read to counts!"
Top: Summer Learning Challenge packet for children. Bottom: Summer Learning Challenge packet for teens. Both contain instructions in English and Spanish.
Participants in the challenge are given a packet with a game board that they can progressively fill in as they read. The Summer Learning Challenge encourages both kids and teens to read for 1,200 minutes, or 20 hours, across the summer, but has slight variations across age groups.
Children are expected to read for 20 minutes at a time. For every two hours spent reading, kids can earn a small prize. Once the game board is complete and 1200 minutes are reached, children can earn a free book and a certificate.
The length of reading sessions doubles for teens, who are tasked with reading for 40 minutes per sitting. At 600 minutes, the midway point of the challenge, teens earn a free book. At 1,200 minutes, teens earn a $15 gift card to Atticus Bookstore Cafe.
Children and teens who complete the prize have a chance to enter a raffle where one winner from each age group, will receive a grand prize of a tour of the Yale Peabody Museum with an adult.
Claudia Esposito.
In the program room, Claudia Esposito set up an array of ping-pong balls, paper crafts, and scissors, prepping for her experiments to take flight.
A former elementary school teacher, Esposito founded Cool-ology in 2011, after one of her sons came home from school and announced his detest for science. Determined to change his mind and show the beauty of science, Esposito used her teaching background to to develop science lessons that incorporates themes of science, technology, arts, engineering, and math (STEAM).
“I started Cool-ology in my backyard and invited a whole bunch of kids to come and do experiments that I had put together … we went out in the woods and did all kinds of fun activities,” she said.
Now she teaches all over Connecticut, sharing her enthusiasm and love of science. what better way, for instance, to encourage kids to fly high in their scientific pursuits than by teaching them about flight?
Five-year-old Issac immediately jumped on the opportunity, putting his name on a strip of paper and customizing it before transforming it into a flying fish spinner.
While Issac was carried away in his world drawing, his mother Diane Kenaston made sure he equally prioritized reading. Across the table from his coloring and paper strips was his checked out stack of books carefully guarded by Kenaston, who asked not to be photographed.
From Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who to Esphyr Slobodkina’s Caps for Sale, Kenaston had plenty of children's classics to choose from for their nightly reading sessions.
“He loves to read and we read together,” she said. “Usually we read before bed and then we make sure to go through and reread all the books once we get them from the library and then before we return them to the library.”
Getting new books consistently from the library helps with reading, she said. It ensures that Isaac is always exposed to new material and doesn’t get bored.
“We love the library and we knew we wanted to be part of the summer reading program,” she said.
Yvette Cole, Janaye, and Latoya Armstrong.
Back in the reading circle, Janaye Armstrong sat attentively answering Cole's questions about prominent Black figures like Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, and Ruby Bridges. Her background knowledge comes from her mother, Latoya Armstrong.
Armstrong, who is a fitness instructor, makes sure her daughter knows about her Caribbean roots and the African diaspora, she said. It was through her profession that she found an unexpected community that embraced Black history.
“I'm from Barbados, and in Barbados, we push Black history a lot, but when I came here [to the US] at first, I wasn't getting that,” Armstrong said. “But then it got into a community of people in the gym that actually acknowledge that history.”
Since then, Armstrong has been unapologetically Black, from wearing Black history themed shirts to going to Black events throughout June in celebration of Juneteenth and enrolling her daughter in schools that celebrate Black excellence. Elm City College Preparatory Elementary School is one of them, she said.
Now in fifth grade, Janaye does dance at Betsy Ross Arts Magnet School (BRAMS), . Armstrong made the switch from Elm City to BRAMS so that Janaye could follow her more creative pursuits.
While Armstrong remarked that Elm City was more “involved” and proactive in Black history than BRAMS, Janaye is still involved in Black history, now through a lens of artistry. Janaye spoke excitedly about a Black History dance she’ll be performing this Friday under BRAMS dance teacher Nikki Claxton.
“Shes has been at our school for like, more than like 20 years and on February… and in June she does Black history dances,” she said. “She’s a really good dance teacher.”
Whether through dancing or reading, Janaye highlighted how she always loves learning about Black historical figures to gain a deeper understanding of herself.
“I'm a part of the [Black] community, so I like to represent the people that have fought for us,” she said.