The American Library in Paris

(Hybrid) Reading for the Planet with Jennifer Wenzel
2022-03-22 19:30 - 20:30 (Europe/Paris) | The American Library in Paris
Join Evenings with an Author (in person and online*) to discuss
The Disposition of Nature: Environmental Crisis and World Literature
with scholar Jennifer Wenzel
Click here to RSVP
As the climate crisis becomes one of the dominant topics of the 21st century, scholars and activists are still seeking a vocabulary with which to describe it. The phasing out of “climate change” and “global warming,” and the emphasis on justice, remind us of the importance of rhetorical choices as we try to build a liveable future. There are few more qualified to speak on the relationship between narrative and climate than scholar Jennifer Wenzel, whose recent work, The Disposition of Nature: Environmental Crisis and World Literature, argues for the role of cultural imagining in climate discourse.
Traversing political ecology, geography, anthropology, history, and law, and punctuated by case studies in world literature, the book is a searching and invigorating contribution to the climate debate. Demonstrating to readers how their relation to earth is informed by their consumption of media depicting it, Wenzel argues for new ways of imagining the world and our place in it. The solution will not be to merely read the planet, but to begin to read for it. Wenzel will be in conversation with Programs Manager Alice McCrum.
Click here to RSVP
About the speaker:
Jennifer Wenzel is a scholar of postcolonial studies and environmental and energy humanities, and Associate Professor at Columbia University. The Disposition of Nature: Environmental Crisis and World Literature (2020), was shortlisted for the Association for the Study of the Arts of the Present 2020 Book Prize. She is also the author of Bulletproof: Afterlives of Anticolonial Prophecy in South Africa and Beyond (2009), awarded Honorable Mention for the Perkins Prize by the International Society for the Study of Narrative.
Registration required. Free and open to the public.
*The discussion will be available both online and in person. While the conversation will happen in person (Wenzel and McCrum will appear in the Reading Room), the Library will stream the conversation on Zoom for a live viewing experience. Both in-person and online attendees will be able to pose questions.
Click here to RSVP
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Important on-site information regarding COVID-19: Masks remain strongly recommended, per the French Ministry of Health.

YA Fantasy Book Club: "Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief" (ages 12–adult)
2022-03-19 14:00 - 15:00
YA Fantasy Book Club: “Percy Jackson and The Lightning Thief”

For ages 12–adult

Join fantasy fans to discuss new worlds and novels with like-minded readers.

New book club members are always welcome! Participants are welcome to attend meetings based on the individual book. In March, we’ll be reading and discussing Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan. Beware—there will be spoilers! This book club meeting will be facilitated by Children’s and Teens’ Services Intern (and fantasy fan) Pallas-Amenah Morgan.

The following books will be read and discussed during Saturday meetings from 14h00-15h00:
9 April: Legendborn by Tracy Deonn
21 May: Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas

Important information: This event is for Library members, and advance registration is required. In compliance with French regulations, please note: a valid Pass Vaccinal (ages 16+) or Pass Sanitaire (ages 12–15) is required to enter the Library. Masks are strongly encouraged for all Library visitors ages 6 and up, staff, and volunteers. Event attendees are expected to familiarize themselves with the Library’s Rules and Code of Conduct so that we can provide a pleasant library environment for all patrons. Questions about collections and programs for teens can be sent to the Library’s Children’s and Teens’ Services Manager, Celeste Rhoads: celeste@americanlibraryinparis.org.

Rules and Code of Conduct

Register here

We are an independent, nonprofit organization celebrating our 101st year of service. With your continued support, we are able to provide over 200 programs each year for ages 0–18. If you would like to support the Library, you can make a donation to help sustain this vital institution, and programs such as this one.

Donate to the Library

Treasure Map-Making (ages 6–12)
2022-03-19 11:00 - 12:00
Treasure Map-Making

For ages 6–12

Join Children’s and Teens’ Services Manager Celeste and volunteers in the Children’s Library to learn about treasure seekers and pirates in history, then create your own treasure map to take home.
Each child (aged 6–12) may participate in the program on their own, while their chaperone remains inside the Library.

Important information: This event is for Library members, and advance registration is required. Please note: masks are strongly encouraged for all Library visitors ages 6 and up, staff, and volunteers. Caregivers are expected to familiarize themselves with the Library Policy for Children and the Rules and Code of Conduct so that we can provide a pleasant library environment for all patrons. Questions about collections and programs for children and teens can be sent to the Library’s Children’s and Teens’ Services Manager, Celeste Rhoads: celeste@americanlibraryinparis.org.

Children in the Library Policy

Register here

We are an independent, nonprofit organization celebrating our 101st year of service. With your continued support, we are able to provide over 200 programs each year for ages 0–18. If you would like to support the Library, you can make a donation to help sustain this vital institution, and programs such as this one.

Donate to the Library

Teen Night: Rock Trivia with Matt Black (ages 12–18)
2022-03-18 19:00 - 21:00
Teen Night: Rock Trivia with Matt Black
For ages 12–18
Register here

Join Matt Black, creator of Rock U., for a series of musical quizzes and games to test your musical knowledge. No need to be an expert at rock music to play—all teens are welcome: diehard music fans and those just looking to discover great music and great people. Participants should download the free app Kahoot ahead of time, so we can play! Several devices will be available at the Library for those who do not have a device to download the app.

About Matt Black: Matt Black has worked as an educator for more than 30 years, and gets big thrills as a guitarist and vocalist with beloved Paris party band The Doodads. In 2012, he searched Paris for a rock band program for his daughter—and when he couldn’t find one, he created Rock U. instead! Matt works with Rock U. students on the techniques of playing together to craft a live band performance. Learn more about Matt Black and Rock U. here.

Important information: Advance registration is required to attend this event, and each teen must have a signed permission slip on file at the Library in order to participate. Participation in teen events is free for Library members and 10 euros per person for non-members. Please note: a valid Pass Vaccinal (ages 16+) or Pass Sanitaire (ages 12–15) is required to enter the Library in compliance with government guidelines. Masks are strongly encouraged for all Library visitors ages 6 and up, staff, and volunteers. Library visitors are expected to familiarize themselves with the Rules and Code of Conduct so that we can provide a pleasant library environment for all patrons. Questions about collections and programs for children and teens can be sent to the Library’s Children’s and Teens’ Services Manager, Celeste Rhoads: celeste@americanlibraryinparis.org.
We thank you for your continued support and for being a part of the Library community!
Register here

Download a permission slip

Donate to the Library

Story Hour: St. Patrick's Day (ages 3–5)
2022-03-16 14:30 - 15:30
Story Hour:
St. Patrick’s Day

For ages 3–5
3–5 year-olds and their grown-ups are invited to join us for an interactive Story Hour in a small group! This program lasts an hour, and features songs, stories, and hand rhymes in English.
For this Story Hour, put on something green, and enjoy picture books all about St. Patrick’s Day, including That’s What Leprechauns Do by Eve Bunting, illustrated by Arnold McCully. This Story Hour will be hosted by Children’s and Teens’ Services Librarian Kirsty McCulloch Reid, with the help of Library volunteer Mary Wessels, and Library Intern Pallas-Amenah Morgan. They will read books and lead you and your little one in songs and hand-rhymes during a live, interactive session. This participatory program is intended to encourage children to actively engage with stories. Plan to join in, sing along, and move around, and model movement and listening for your little one. We ask that caregivers put away their phones and other devices for the duration of this program.

Register here

Important information: This event is for Library members, and advance registration is required. In compliance with French regulations, please note: masks are strongly encouraged for all Library visitors ages 6 and up, staff, and volunteers. Caregivers are expected to familiarize themselves with the Library Policy for Children and the Rules and Code of Conduct so that we can provide a pleasant library environment for all patrons. Questions about collections and programs for children and teens can be sent to the Library’s Children’s and Teens’ Services Manager, Celeste Rhoads: celeste@americanlibraryinparis.org.
We are an independent, nonprofit organization celebrating our 101st year of service. With your continued support, we are able to provide over 200 programs each year for ages 0–18. If you would like to support the Library, you can make a donation to help sustain this vital institution, and programs such as this one.

Children in the Library Policy

Donate to the Library

Joan Koenig on the Power of Music (ages 0–6)
2022-03-12 11:00 - 12:00
Joan Koenig on The Power of Music

For ages 0–6

Join Joan Koenig, Founder & Executive Director of the L’Ecole Koenig Preschool & Music School, for an introduction on the importance of musical education. During this interactive program, Koenig will discuss the benefits of a musical education, and demonstrate examples of tools to make music with children and for integrating music into our daily lives. Adult chaperones are expected to actively participate in the program with their children.
In Joan Koenig’s book The Musical Child: Using the Power of Music to Raise Children Who Are Happy, Healthy, and Whole, Koenig shares stories from her classrooms, along with tips about how to use the latest research during the critical years when children are most sensitive to musical exposure—and most receptive to its benefits. The Musical Child reveals the multiple ways music can help children thrive—and how, in the twenty-first century, its practice is more vital than ever.

About Joan Koenig: Koenig is an American-born musician, educator, author, public speaker, mother, creative dervish, and science nerd who has made her home in Paris for the past 40 years. She’s a graduate of the Juilliard School and has performed worldwide as a soloist and chamber musician. Jazz and Hindustani music (classical music of northern India) have played an integral role in her musical life and reflection on human musicality. Koenig’s pioneering research and innovative work with music have earned L’Ecole Koenig a solid reputation in the Parisian community, among music cognition experts, and beyond. Her dynamic and integrative approach to early music experience has shifted conventional thinking about literacy acquisition, empathy building, and the potential for creating collaborative communities among young children. Koenig is regularly invited to present her research in education and music cognition conferences around the world.

Important information: This event is for Library members, and advance registration is required. In compliance with French regulations, please note: a valid Pass Vaccinal (ages 16+) or Pass Sanitaire (ages 12–15) is required to enter the Library. Masks are strongly encouraged for all Library visitors ages 6 and up, staff, and volunteers. Caregivers are expected to familiarize themselves with the Library Policy for Children and the Rules and Code of Conduct so that we can provide a pleasant library environment for all patrons. Questions about collections and programs for children and teens can be sent to the Library’s Children’s and Teens’ Services Manager, Celeste Rhoads: celeste@americanlibraryinparis.org.

Children in the Library Policy

Register here

We are an independent, nonprofit organization celebrating our 101st year of service. With your continued support, we are able to provide over 200 programs each year for ages 0–18. If you would like to support the Library, you can make a donation to help sustain this vital institution, and programs such as this one.

Donate to the Library

(Hybrid) Arendt Revisited with Samantha Rose Hill and D.N. Rodowick
2022-03-09 19:30 - 20:30 | The American Library in Paris
Join Evenings with an Author (in-person and online*) to discuss
Hannah Arendt
with author Samantha Rose Hill and professor D.N. Rodowick
Click here to RSVP
Since she first gained international attention for her writing on the Eichmann trial, Hannah Arendt’s life and image has developed a mythological status: from her refusal of the title of ‘philosopher’ to her battles with Theodor Adorno over Walter Benjamin’s legacy, the legend of Arendt the person is as well-known as her more famous theoretical texts. The triumph of author and researcher Samantha Rose Hill’s new book, Hannah Arendt, is that it avoids demystifying Arendt. Rather, it complicates the myth, contributing new and contradictory information to the historian (and sometimes philosopher’s) biography.
A volume of the University of Chicago Press’s Critical Lives book series, Rose Hill’s concise and intelligent work draws from heavy archival research. After looking at Arendt’s original notebooks, Rose Hill has returned to the world with news: Arendt, famous for her austere disposition and analysis of human evil, also wrote poetry, loved to shop, and enjoyed drinking Campari with soda. This does not lighten the intellectual weight of Arendt’s works, but rather highlights the pathos informing them. Rose Hill presents us with a nuanced picture of a woman who rejected any classification of herself or her ideas, and whose perspective on tragedy and violence was made all the more astute by a love for life and for the world.
Click here to RSVP
About the speakers:
Samantha Rose Hill is a writer and researcher. She is associate faculty at the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research and previously served as assistant director of the Hannah Arendt Center for Politics and Humanities. Rose Hill is the author of two books on Arendt: Hannah Arendt (2021) and Hannah Arendt’s Poems (2022). She is currently writing a book about loneliness for Yale University Press.
D.N. Rodowick is the Glen A. Lloyd Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago. He is the author of Elegy for Theory (2014), and Philosophy’s Artful Conversation (2015), among other texts. In his most recent work, An Education in Judgment: Hannah Arendt and the Humanities (2021), Rodowick argues that Arendt’s philosophy of judgment could reorient the humanities toward a practice of free engagement.
Registration required. Free and open to the public.
*The discussion will be available both online and in person. While Rodowick will be speaking in person in the Reading Room, Rose Hill will be appearing over Zoom. The Library will stream the conversation on Zoom for a live viewing experience. Both in-person and online attendees will be able to pose questions.
Click here to RSVP
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Important: on-site information regarding COVID-19
In compliance with French law, a valid Pass Vaccinal (ages 16+) or Pass Sanitaire (ages 12–15) is required to enter the Library. Masks remain strongly recommended, per the French Ministry of Health.

Creating Characters: A Writing Workshop (ages 8–12)
2022-03-05 11:00 - 12:30
Creating Characters: A Writing Workshop

For ages 8–12
Join Children’s and Teens’ Services Manager Celeste and volunteers in the Children’s Library to begin creating your own characters to use as the basis for an original short story. Participants will create an outline for a character, and add details and a backstory to bring that character to life. Then, each child will share their ideas and receive feedback from peers in the group.

This workshop is part of our Young Authors Fiction Festival programming. We are proud to be the organizer of the Young Authors Fiction Festival (YAFF). YAFF is a short story writing contest, the only creative writing initiative in the Paris area in English, that aims to strengthen community among English-speakers through the art and craft of storytelling. We believe that creative writing plays an important role in a child’s literacy development. Creative writing is fun and a great tool to help broaden a child’s imagination and foster a life-long love of reading and writing. YAFF is free of charge and open to all students ages 5–18 in the greater Paris area who write in English. Read more about YAFF here.
Each child (aged 8–12) may participate in the program on their own, while their chaperone remains inside the Library.
Important information: This event is for Library members, and advance registration is required. In compliance with French regulations, please note: a valid Pass Vaccinal (ages 16+) or Pass Sanitaire (ages 12–15) is required to enter the Library. Masks are strongly encouraged for all Library visitors ages 6 and up, staff, and volunteers. Caregivers are expected to familiarize themselves with the Library Policy for Children and the Rules and Code of Conduct so that we can provide a pleasant library environment for all patrons. Questions about collections and programs for children and teens can be sent to the Library’s Children’s and Teens’ Services Manager, Celeste Rhoads: celeste@americanlibraryinparis.org.

Register here

We are an independent, nonprofit organization celebrating our 101st year of service. With your continued support, we are able to provide over 200 programs each year for ages 0–18. If you would like to support the Library, you can make a donation to help sustain this vital institution, and programs such as this one.

Children in the Library Policy

Donate to the Library

(Online) Architecture for the Future with Mollie Claypool and Jack Self
2022-03-02 19:30 - 20:30
Join Evenings with an Author (online) to discuss
Architecture for the Future
with architects Mollie Claypool and Jack Self
Click here to RSVP
As we look to the future, how might architecture and design help to bring about a brighter one? Indeed, how can architecture engage with feminism, anti-capitalism, and sustainability? What tools are available within the field to support society-wide change? These are the questions that two leaders in imaginative architecture and design, Mollie Claypool and Jack Self, will seek to ask and answer.

A specialist in architecture and automation, Mollie Claypool argues for a rethinking of architectural production. Considering the individual parts that make up a building, she asks how we might employ automation to create more equitable frameworks for design production. Architect Jack Self, for his part, works in domestic design and housing, the history of communitarian life, alternative modes of finance and ownership, and new environmental standards. In their work, both Claypool and Self are critical of the state of the world. But, as Self writes, “Criticism does not mean negativity. I believe powerfully in the proposition, the project, and the positive act. The present and past are tools for constructing the future.” Together, the two will discuss the positive role of criticism in architecture, while also considering the role of the practical and the imaginative in creating alternative futures.
Click here to RSVP
About the speakers:
Mollie Claypool is an architecture theorist focused on issues of social justice highlighted by increasing automation in architecture and design production. She is Co-Founder and CEO of technology company Automated Architecture (AUAR) Ltd and Co-Director of AUAR Labs at The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, where she is an Associate Professor in Architecture. She isco-author of Robotic Building: Architecture in the Age of Automation (Detail Edition 2019) and author of the SPACE10 report “The Digital in Architecture: Then, Now and in the Future” (2019).
Jack Self is a London-based architect, curator, and writer. He is the Director of REAL, a cultural institute and architectural practice, Editor-in-Chief of Real Review and co-founder of REAL homes. Self curated the British Pavilion at the 2016 Venice Architecture Biennale with the show Home Economics. He is the author of Real Estates: Life Without Debt (2014), and Home Economics: New Models of Domestic Life (2016), among other works.
Registration required. Free and open to the public.
Click here to RSVP

Story Hour: Diggers & Dump Trucks (ages 3–5)
2022-03-02 14:30 - 15:30
Story Hour:
Diggers & Dump Trucks

For ages 3–5
3–5 year-olds and their grown-ups are invited to join us for an interactive Story Hour in a small group! This program lasts an hour, and features songs, stories, and hand rhymes in English.
For this Story Hour, enjoy picture books, and rhymes all about diggers, dump trucks and other vehicles, including Digger, Dozer, Dumper by Hope Vestergaard, illustrated by David Slonim. This Story Hour will be hosted by Children’s and Teens’ Services Manager Celeste Rhoads, with the help of Library volunteer Mary Wessels, and Library Intern Pallas-Amenah Morgan. They will read books and lead you and your little one in songs and hand-rhymes during a live, interactive session. This participatory program is intended to encourage children to actively engage with stories. Plan to join in, sing along, and move around, and model movement and listening for your little one. We ask that caregivers put away their phones and other devices for the duration of this program.

Register here

Important information: This event is for Library members, and advance registration is required. In compliance with French regulations, please note: a valid Pass Vaccinal (ages 16+) or Pass Sanitaire (ages 12–15) is required to enter the Library. Masks are strongly encouraged for all Library visitors ages 6 and up, staff, and volunteers. Caregivers are expected to familiarize themselves with the Library Policy for Children and the Rules and Code of Conduct so that we can provide a pleasant library environment for all patrons. Questions about collections and programs for children and teens can be sent to the Library’s Children’s and Teens’ Services Manager, Celeste Rhoads: celeste@americanlibraryinparis.org.
We are an independent, nonprofit organization celebrating our 101st year of service. With your continued support, we are able to provide over 200 programs each year for ages 0–18. If you would like to support the Library, you can make a donation to help sustain this vital institution, and programs such as this one.

Children in the Library Policy

Donate to the Library

Beginning Your Short Story (ages 8–12)
2022-02-27 14:00 - 15:00
For children ages 8–12
Register here

Join Children’s and Teens’ Services Librarian and YAFF Coordinator Kirsty for a writing workshop dedicated to brilliant beginnings.
We will read some great opening lines of stories together, then focus on creating the beginning and an outline of your own original story. We’ll discuss story structures and different ways of beginning stories.
Kirsty will also talk through the requirements of entry into the Young Authors Fiction Festival (YAFF) for those who wish to enter their short story. Find out more about the Library’s Young Authors Fiction Festival on the YAFF page.
Register here

This event open to Library members, and registration is required. Parents and other caregivers are expected to familiarize themselves with these guidelines so that we can provide a pleasant library environment for all patrons. If you have questions about events and/or collections for children and teens, please contact Children’s and Teens’ Services Manager Celeste Rhoads: celeste@americanlibraryinparis.org.
We thank you for your continued support and for being a part of the Library community! If you would like to support the Library, you can donate here to help sustain this vital institution in its 100th year of service.
Donate to the Library

Make Your Own Comic (ages 6–12)
2022-02-26 11:00 - 12:00
Make Your Own Comic

For ages 6–12

Join Children’s and Teens’ Services Manager Celeste and volunteers in the Children’s Library to begin creating your own original comic. Outline your story, and sketch the illustrations, and then begin putting it all together.
Each child (aged 6–12) may participate in the program on their own, while their chaperone remains inside the Library.
This live, interactive event will be hosted in the Children’s Library—Juvenile.
This event is for Library members, and advance registration is required. In compliance with French regulations, a pass sanitaire is required for all visitors ages 12+. Visitors ages 6+, staff, and volunteers are required to wear masks on the premises.
Caregivers are expected to familiarize themselves with the Library Policy for Children so that we can provide a pleasant library environment for all patrons. Questions about collections and programs for teens can be sent to the Library’s Children’s and Teens’ Services Manager, Celeste Rhoads: celeste@americanlibraryinparis.org.
Register here

We are an independent, nonprofit organization celebrating our 101st year of service. With your continued support, we are able to provide over 200 programs each year for ages 0–18. If you would like to support the Library, you can make a donation to help sustain this vital institution, and programs such as this one.

Children in the Library Policy

Donate to the Library

(Hybrid) How to Play La Parisienne
2022-02-22 19:30 - 20:30 | The American Library in Paris
Join Evenings with an Author (in-person and online*) to discuss
Playing the Parisienne
with actor Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu and journalist Elaine Sciolino
Click here to RSVP
It is almost impossible to live as an expat in France without, at least once, confronting the cultural phenomenon that is the Netflix series “Emily in Paris.” If you haven’t watched it, you have a friend or relative that has. Though the series has received a blend of love, curiosity, as well as sometimes vitriol, a particular target of public attention has been the character Sylvie Grateau (played by Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu), who heads the marketing agency that reluctantly hosts Emily Cooper (played by Lily Collins), the show’s guileless American heroine.
Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu, a seasoned French actress who plays the effortlessly chic and compellingly mean antagonist-turned-friend, believes that her character is more complicated than the stereotypes to which public opinion has reduced her. In a recent New York Times profile by journalist Elaine Sciolino, she defended the show’s lack of realism, and explained her method and inspirations for stepping into Sylvie’s strappy shoes. In an exciting evening for expat and French viewers alike, Leroy-Beaulieu and Sciolino will continue their conversation on femininity, age, style, and mean (and nice) Parisians at the American Library. Join the two women as they discuss the trajectory of Leroy-Beaulieu’s career, the cultural aftershocks of “Emily in Paris,” and her experience adopting the mantle of the elegant and infamous Parisienne.
Click here to RSVP
About the speakers:
Elaine Sciolino is a contributing writer and former Paris bureau chief for The New York Times, based in France since 2002. Her latest book, The Seine: The River That Made Paris, was a Los Angeles Times bestseller and a Barnes & Noble nonfiction book-of-the-month selection. Her previous book, The Only Street in Paris: Life on the Rue des Martyrs, published in 2015, was a New York Times best seller. Sciolino was decorated chevalier of the Legion of Honor in 2010 for her “special contribution” to the friendship between France and the United States.
Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu, who grew up in Rome before moving to Paris as a teenager, was nominated for a César for the 1985 comedy and runaway hit, “Trois Hommes et un Couffin.” Over the years, she has played roles as varied as Charlotte Corday (Marat’s assassin during the French Revolution), a drug addict, a Russian aristocrat, a psychopathic doctor turned police officer, and a Polish-Jewish émigré in World War II France. More recently, she has been known for playing the beautiful ambitious wife of Mathias Barneville, the most senior agent, in Cédric Klapisch’s Dix Pour Cent.
Click here to RSVP
*The discussion will be available both online and in person. While the conversation will happen in person (Leroy-Beaulieu and Sciolino will appear in the Reading Room), the Library will stream the conversation on Zoom for a live viewing experience. Both in-person and online attendees will be able to pose questions.
On-site information regarding COVID-19: In compliance with French law, a valid Pass Vaccinal (ages 16+) or Pass Sanitaire (ages 12–15) is required to enter the Library. Masks must be worn correctly at all times by all Library visitors ages 6 and up.

Fantasy Book Club: "The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue" (ages 12–adult)
2022-02-19 14:00 - 15:00
Join fantasy fans to discuss new worlds and novels with like-minded readers.

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

New book club members are always welcome! Participants are welcome to attend meetings based on the individual book. In February, we’ll be reading and discussing The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab. Beware—there will be spoilers! This book club meeting will be facilitated by Children’s and Teens’ Services Manager (and fantasy fan) Celeste Rhoads.

The following books will be read and discussed during Saturday meetings from 14h00-15h00:
19 February: The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab
19 March: Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan
9 April: Legendborn by Tracy Deonn
12 May: Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas

Advance registration is required. Participation in this book group is open to Library members, and free of charge. If you are not yet a Library member, but would like to participate, please join the Library before this session.

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

For questions about collections or events at the Library for Children and Teens contact Celeste Rhoads, our Children’s and Teens’ Services Manager: celeste@americanlibraryinparis.org.

(Live) The Creative Process Revealed
2022-02-16 19:30 - 20:30
*Live Event Only*
Join Evenings with an Author to discuss
The Creative Process Revealed
with Jonathan Bloom
Click here to RSVP
In what ways does tracing the creative process give us a better understanding of a published work? How do writers’ decisions to add or remove material, however minor or extensive, substantially alter their work? How does the actual choice and use of writing tools influence that process? In what ways do editorial suggestions for revision enter into the process as well, after authors submit for publication what they consider to be their final versions?

This unusually diverse multiple-author collection devoted entirely to British and Irish writers explores many facets of the creative process while revealing hitherto unexamined, unpublished writings from numerous archives and private collections on both sides of the Atlantic. Spanning over a century of writing, the volume explores the creative process in four genres (the novel, poetry, autobiography, the short story), examines the work of major canonical writers as well as award-winning living writers, and counts among its contributors distinguished international scholars and writers working in such wide-ranging fields as modernism, life writing, genetic criticism, creative writing, gender studies, codicology, and electronic textual editing. Much can be learned from these pioneering investigations and archival revelations which offer general readers, writers, and critics alike the rare opportunity to witness the hidden craftsmanship at the heart of the creative process.

Copies of Genesis and Revision in Modern British and Irish Writers will be for sale after the event for just 20€ (retail price 70-100€) thanks to Bill & Rosa’s Book Room (Paris West – Boulogne). After the event, additional copies may be ordered by contacting BRbookroom@gmail.com.

About the speaker:
Jonathan Bloom is Senior Lecturer at the University of Paris-Dauphine, Paris Sciences & Lettres, France. He has published widely and his book The Art of Revision in the Short Stories of V. S. Pritchett and William Trevor (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007) received critical acclaim and was nominated for the MLA First Book Prize. He has been awarded three Harry Ransom Center Fellowships and works primarily in 20th century British literature and genetic criticism.
*The event will not be online.
On-site information regarding COVID-19: In compliance with French regulations, a pass sanitaire is required for all visitors ages 12+. Visitors ages 6+, staff, and volunteers are required to wear masks on the premises.

(Hybrid) American Runaway with Audrey Edwards
2022-02-15 19:30 - 20:30
Join Evenings with an Author and Black History Month to discuss
American Runaway
with author Audrey Edwards and Ellen Wright-Hervé
Click here to RSVP
As the 2016 election campaign wore on, many Americans promised to leave America if Donald Trump was elected. And when Trump won in November, celebrated journalist Audrey Edwards did just that. Inspired by a history of Black Americans leaving the United States for France in search of social and political liberation, Edwards left the country to both protest Trump and to protect her well-being as a Black woman. Her new book, American Runaway: Black and Free in Paris in the Trump Years, chronicles the life she made for herself abroad.
A witty, captivating, and moving work, American Runaway captures Edwards’s sharp voice and dry humor. Filled with fabulous soirées, kooky characters, complicated friendships, and the occasionally messy cultural exchange, the work is simultaneously accessible and vulnerable. It broaches the varied challenges known by all expats of leaving one’s home behind, as well as the particular experience of a Black woman “of a certain age” in the City of Lights. Ultimately, Edwards offers a triumphant story of self-liberation.
Click here to RSVP
About the speakers:
Audrey Edwards is a journalist and author whose work, over the course of her career, grapples with issues of race and gender. A former Executive Editor of Essence and Vice President of Editorial Operations at Black Enterprise, Edwards has worked with figures such as Oprah Winfrey and Maxime Waters to make the work and experiences of Black women accessible to mass-media audiences. She is the author of Children of the Dream: The Psychology of Black Success and The Man from Essence: Creating a Magazine for Black Women, among other works.
Ellen Wright-Hervé is the French granddaughter of Black writer Richard Wright, who lived and worked in Paris as an expatriate for much of his life. Born in Accra, Ghana to parents who worked with Kwame Nkrumah for Ghana’s independence, Wright-Hervé has since lived in Lagos, London, Rennes, Tours and presently Paris. In addition to work dedicated to training in hospitals, she works actively in the city to preserve her grandfather’s legacy as a writer and cultural figure. She is currently conducting research on his life and work.

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*The discussion will be available both online and in person. While the conversation will happen in person (Edwards and Wright-Hervé will appear in the Reading Room), the Library will stream the conversation on Zoom for a live viewing experience. Both in-person and online attendees will be able to pose questions. The conversation is organized and co-sponsored by Little Africa Paris.
On-site information regarding COVID-19: In compliance with French regulations, a pass sanitaire is required for all visitors ages 12+. Visitors ages 6+, staff, and volunteers are required to wear masks on the premises.

Teen Advisory Group meeting (ages 12–18) (FULL)
2022-02-11 17:30 - 18:30
Teen Advisory Group (TAG) members provide valuable feedback and share ideas about the Library’s teen programs, services, and collections! TAG brings teens together from all over Paris.
TAG 2021–2022 is full.
Members of this group are asked to:

Brainstorm suggestions for future teen programs
Help with preparation of programs
Offer input and suggestions about policies
Advise on furnishings and decorations for the Teen Mezzanine
Offer opinions on selected books that we are considering adding to our collections
Promote the Library as a great place to be

Members of this club are avid readers, who are often offered a selection of books that are under consideration for the Library’s young adult collections, but which the Children’s and Teens’ Services staff would like teen input on for a variety of reasons. Group members will read these titles and present them for discussion, offering opinions and valuable feedback. Children’s and Teens’ Services Manager Celeste Rhoads facilitates each meeting, and will take notes on all of the comments and feedback.
If you are interested in joining the Teen Advisory Group, find out more here.
Questions about collections and programs for teens can be sent to the Library’s Children’s and Teens’ Services Manager, Celeste Rhoads: celeste@americanlibraryinparis.org.
We thank you for your continued support and for being a part of the Library community! If you would like to support the Library, you can donate here to help sustain this vital institution in its 100th year of service.

(Hybrid) Myth of a Colorblind France
2022-02-09 19:00 - 20:30
Join Evenings with an Author and Black History Month to discuss
Myth of a Colorblind France*
with film-maker Alan Govenar and Monique Wells
Click here to RSVP
*Please note that the event will now start at 19h CET and run for 90 minutes.
The term ‘colorblind’ is complicated and frequently ambiguous, carrying with it both negative and positive connotations. Historically, France has been celebrated for its colorblind ethos, which favors equality over difference. However, recent discussions have highlighted the ways the colorblind approach ignores socio-political structures and undervalues the particularities of the Black experience. Alan Govenar’s documentary, Myth of a Colorblind France, arrives at a pertinent moment in this debate. Detailing both historical African American artists who saw France as a place of refuge from American racism, and the experience of immigrants and people of color in present-day France, Govenar offers a rich picture of Black history in France while also criticizing oversimplified narratives depicting France as a racial utopia.
Ultimately, the film invites us to reflect on the nature of myth: what myth is, how it can be put to use, and how we can simultaneously find truth and falsity in it. From figures such as Josephine Baker, James Baldwin, and Richard Wright, to contemporary artists such as musician Karim Toure, Govenar’s tone is neither naïve nor damning, but rather celebratory of Black life and art.
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About the speakers:
Alan Govenar is a writer, folklorist, and visual artist. He is the author of eighteen books, including Osceola: Memories of a Sharecropper’s Daughter, which won First Place in the New York Book Festival and was awarded a Boston Globe-Hornbook Honor. Also a photographer and film-maker, his film Stoney Knows How was selected as an Outstanding Film of the Year by the London Film Festival.
A native of Houston, Texas, Dr. Monique Wells is the founder and CEO of the Wells International Foundation which works to empower individuals, especially women and persons of African descent. As an African-American resident of Paris, veterinary pathologist and toxicologist, world traveler, entrepreneur and arts enthusiast, Dr. Wells knows there is a great need to expose Paris-based minorities to educational and cultural opportunities that will allow them to have a richer, more rewarding life.
Click here to RSVP
*The discussion will be available both online and in person. While the conversation will happen in person (Wells will appear in the Reading Room and Govenar will appear on Zoom), the Library will stream the conversation on Zoom for a live viewing experience. Both in-person and online attendees will be able to pose questions. The conversation is organized and co-sponsored by Little Africa Paris.
*Please note that the event will now start at 19h CET and run for 90 minutes.
On-site information regarding COVID-19: In compliance with French regulations, a pass sanitaire is required for all visitors ages 12+. Visitors ages 6+, staff, and volunteers are required to wear masks on the premises.

(Online) Hood Feminism with Mikki Kendall
2022-02-07 20:00 - 21:00
Join Evenings with an Author and Black History Month to discuss
Hood Feminism
with authors Mikki Kendall and Kierstan Kaushal-Carter
Click here to RSVP
In recent years, many have zeroed in on the workplace as the site of female oppression; from sexual harassment to unequal career opportunities, women are fighting for their right to work safely and productively. Observing this phenomenon in her work Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women That a Movement Forgot, Mikki Kendall offers a simple but radical counter-argument: today’s iteration of feminism, by ignoring material conditions for survival such as food security, medical care, education, and access to safe housing, has left behind the majority of women.
Proposing that hunger, homelessness, homophobia, racial discrimination, and more are feminist issues, Kendall takes aim at the blindness of feminist movements toward the everyday experience and needs of women. Reintroducing the intersection of race and class into contemporary feminist lexicon, Kendall writes, is the only way to salvage the movement itself. Until this moment, the commitment to solidarity at the heart of the feminist mission is worth nogthing. Equal parts pointed critique, personal narrative, and call to action, the work refuses to exculpate the women who use feminist mantles to opress others. In this way, Hood Feminism charts a path for true female liberation. The conversation is organized and co-sponsored by Little Africa Paris.
About the speakers:
Mikki Kendall is a writer, cultural critic, diversity consultant, and “occasional feminist.” She speaks and writes on feminist history and race, as well as on police violence and contemporary culture. Her work has been published in The Guardian, The Washington Post, and NBC News; she has appeared on the BBC, NPR, The Daily Show, and PBS. She is the author of graphic novel Amazons, Abolitionists, and Activists (2019).
Having received a M.A. in Government from Harvard University and a B.A. in English and American Culture Studies from Washington University in St. Louis., Kierstan Kaushal-Carter is now a fourth-year doctoral student in African and African American Studies at Harvard University, where she is writing about policing in the twenty first century. Her published writing can be found in The St. Louis Anthology, and The New Republic Magazine.
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Race Relations: The Struggle for Equality in America, with Barbara Diggs (ages 9–12)
2022-02-05 11:00 - 12:00
For children ages 9–12

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER
Dive into history with author Barbara Diggs, and follow the evolution of race relations in America from the country’s earliest beginnings until present day. Find out about how race relations changed—and didn’t—through the eras of Reconstruction, Jim Crow, and Civil Rights, and under the presidencies of Barack Obama and Donald Trump through examples from Diggs’ book Race Relations: The Struggle for Equality in America. Learn about people from four different centuries—some famous, some ordinary citizens—who took great risks to fight for freedom, equality, and social justice.

About Barbara Diggs: Barbara Diggs writes history books for middle-school children and teens. She is currently at work on a middle-grade historical fiction novel. A graduate of Stanford Law School, Barbara practiced law in New York and Paris for several years before becoming a professional writer. You can find out more about Barbara on her website. Barbara’s nonfiction titles, Boycotts, Strikes, and Marches, The Vietnam War, and Race Relations: The Struggle for Equality in America, are available in our print collections and on our e-book platforms for members.
CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

This event open to Library members, and registration is required. Parents and other caregivers are expected to familiarize themselves with these guidelines so that we can provide a pleasant library environment for all patrons. If you have questions about events and/or collections for children and teens, please contact Children’s and Teens’ Services Manager Celeste Rhoads: celeste@americanlibraryinparis.org.

If you would like to support the Library and our services, you can donate here to help sustain this vital institution in its 100th year of service.

We thank you for your continued support and for being a part of the Library community! If you would like to support the Library, you can donate here to help sustain this vital institution in its 100th year of service.

(Online) Entre Nous: Black is the Journey, Africana the Name
2022-02-04 19:30 - 20:30
As part of the Entre Nous series in partnership with Columbia Global Centers | Paris and the Institute for Ideas and Imagination, join professors Maboula Soumahoro and Kaiama L. Glover, both specialists of Africana and Diaspora Studies, for a discussion about Soumahoro’s recent book, Black is the Journey, Africana the Name.
In this highly original book, Soumahoro explores the cultural and political vastness of the Black Atlantic, where Africa, Europe, and the Americas were tied together by the brutal realities of the slave trade and colonialism. Each of these spaces has its own way of reading the Black body and the Black experience, and its own modes of visibility, invisibility, silence, and amplification of Black life. By weaving together her personal history with that of France and its abiding myth of color-blindness, Soumahoro highlights the banality and persistence of structural racism in France today, and shows that freedom will be found in the journey and movement between the sites of the Atlantic triangle. Africana is the name of that freedom.
Click here to RSVP
About the speakers:
Maboula Soumahoro is an associate professor at the University of Tours and president of the Black History Month Association, dedicated to celebrating Black history and cultures. A specialist in the field of Africana Studies, she has conducted research and taught in several universities and prisons in the United States and France and was most recently a Villa Albertine Resident in Atlanta. She is the author of Le Triangle et l’Hexagone, réflexions sur une identité noire (La Découverte, 2021), translated in English by Dr. Kaiama L. Glover as Black Is the Journey, Africana the Name (Polity, 2021). This book received the FetKann! Maryse Condé literary prize in 2020.
Kaiama L. Glover is Ann Whitney Olin Professor of French & Africana Studies and Faculty Director of the Barnard Digital Humanities Center at Barnard College. She is an awardee of the PEN/Heim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Mellon Foundation, and the New York Public Library Cullman Center. She is the founding co-editor of archipelagos | a journal of Caribbean digital praxis, the founding co-organizer of “The Caribbean Digital,” and the founding co-director of the digital humanities project In the Same Boats: Toward an Afro-Atlantic Intellectual Cartography. In 2018-2019 she was a resident Fellow at the Columbia Institute for Ideas and Imagination in Paris, France where she began work on her new book project, For the Love of Revolution: René Depestre and the Poetics of a Radical Life.
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Teen Night: Movie Night with Clarence Tokely (ages 12–18)
2022-02-04 19:00 - 21:00
For ages 12–18

Teen Night:
Movie Night with Clarence Tokley

Register here

Join us for a movie night! Vote on the contemporary film to you’d like to watch, then enjoy a screening in the Library’s comfortable reading room, and discuss the film as a group. Actor, acting coach and filmmaker Clarence Tokley will lead the discussion after the film.

About Clarence Tokley:Clarence Tokley is a Paris-based teacher, filmmaker, and writer. A native of New Jersey, Clarence attended Rutgers University, obtaining a degree in History and Film Studies. Clarence then attended the New York Film Academy in New York City, before packing up everything and moving to Paris—he wanted to get a taste of the European style of storytelling. He fully immersed himself in the film industry and quickly landed his first job in Paris. Some of his credits include Rush Hour 3, Truth in 24, Exes, and the Cherry Orchard. Clarence also does voice-over work in Paris. Along with his duties as teacher of the BAW Teen and Youth Acting courses, he is the director of camps in France and provides workshops and private coaching. When he’s not teaching or coaching, Clarence continues to work professionally in film and theater productions in and around Paris.

Advance registration is required for this event. Participation in teen events is free for Library members and 10 euros per person for non-members. A signed permission slip is required to attend this event. In compliance with French regulations, a pass sanitaire is required for all visitors ages 12+. Visitors ages 6+, staff, and volunteers are required to wear masks on the premises.

Questions about collections and programs for teens can be sent to the Library’s Children’s and Teens’ Services Manager, Celeste Rhoads: celeste@americanlibraryinparis.org.
We thank you for your continued support and for being a part of the Library community!
Register here

Download a permission slip

Donate to the Library

(Hybrid) What Really Troubles the 99% with Albena Azmanova
2022-02-02 19:30 - 20:30 | The American Library in Paris
Join Evenings with an Author (in-person and online*) to discuss
What Really Troubles the 99%
with professors Albena Azmanova and Lucas Chancel
Click here to RSVP
A daring and unapologetic intervention in post-2008 financial crisis leftism, Albena Azmanova’s Capitalism on the Edge offers a radical alternative to traditional anti-capitalist narratives which place inequality at the center of their critiques. Azmanova claims rather that the central contradiction of the modern age is the emergence of “precarity capitalism”: on one side, ceaseless pursuit of profit on a corporate level; on the other, a labor force living in constant financial insecurity. It is this perennial state of anxiety which fosters social and political division; and it is by way of political alliance and social policy aimed at developing trust that we can overcome it.
Both polemical and analytic, Azmanova rejects tropes of capitalism in crisis, as well as calls for revolution to combat. What we need, she instead proposes, is to abandon the rhetoric of utopia, and to embrace reform beyond ideological boundaries. As such, rather than asking how we might better capitalism or how we might dismantle it, Azmanova presents a policy-based action plan aimed at subverting it from within. Azmanova will be in conversation with economist Lucas Chancel.
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About the speakers:
Albena Azmanova is a tenured Associate Professor of Political and Social Theory at the University of Kent’s Brussels School of International Studies and author of The Scandal of Reason: A Critical Theory of Political Judgment (2012). She has served as policy advisor for the United Nations, the Council of Europe, and the European Parliament, among other institutions. Born in Bulgaria, she has resided in Brussels since 1997.
The Co-Director of the World Inequality Lab at the Paris Scool of Economics, and an Affiliate Professor at Sciences Po, Lucas Chancel is an economist who specializes in inequality and in environmental policy. His work focuses on the measurement of economic inequality, its interactions with sustainable development and on the implementation of social and ecological policies. Coverage of his research can be found in Science, Nature, The Guardian, The Financial Times, the New York Times, CNN, Le Monde, Der Spiegel, El Pais, and several other publications.
Registration required. Free and open to the public.
*The discussion will be available both online and in person. While the conversation will happen in person (Azmanova and Chancel will appear in the Reading Room), the Library will stream the conversation on Zoom for a live viewing experience. Both in-person and online attendees will be able to pose questions.
Click here to RSVP
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Important: on-site information regarding COVID-19
In compliance with French regulations, a pass sanitaire is required for all visitors ages 12+. Visitors ages 6+, staff, and volunteers are required to wear masks on the premises.

(Hybrid) From Slavery to Black Lives Matter with Pap Ndiaye
2022-02-01 19:30 - 20:30
Join Evenings with an Author and Black History Month to discuss
Les Noirs Américains
with Professor Pap Ndiaye and writer Jake Lamar
Click here to RSVP
In March 2021, many news outlets from Le Monde to the New York Times reported on a historic moment: Pap Ndiaye, a French historian specializing in African American and Afro-French history, had been appointed director of the National Museum of the History of Immigration in Paris. Built in 1931 to celebrate French colonialism, the museum has a troubled historical identity which Ndiaye seeks to expose and transform.
Described as a “quiet revolutionary,” Ndiaye’s appointment as director followed an immensely successful transatlantic academic career. Born and raised in Paris, he first encountered African American history at the University of Virginia, where he completed his master’s in history. His initial research led him to pioneer a comparative historical approach, researching the African diaspora in France and America in order to conceive of a transnational philosophy of race as its intersectionality. An authority on questions of race and post-colonialism, Ndiaye frequently consults on various cultural projects from the Musée d’Orsay’s exhibit “Black Models” to the Opéra Garnier’s diversity report. The author of many books, including La Condition noire and Les Noirs américains:en marche pour l’égalité, Ndiaye has also written for Le Monde and Libération. Ndiaye will be in conversation with writer Jake Lamar.
Click here to RSVP
About the interviewer:
Jake Lamar is a Paris-based author and professor of creative writing. He has received numerous awards for his work, most notably the Lyndhurst Prize, which was awarded to his début novel Bourgeois Blues and France’s Grand Prize for best foreign thriller for The Last Integrationist. He is also the recipient of the Centre National du Livre grant and the Beaumarchais fellowship.
Click here to RSVP
*The discussion will be available both online and in person. While the conversation will happen in person (Ndiaye and Lamar will appear in the Reading Room), the Library will stream the conversation on Zoom for a live viewing experience. Both in-person and online attendees will be able to pose questions. The conversation is organized and co-sponsored by Little Africa Paris.
On-site information regarding COVID-19: In compliance with French regulations, a pass sanitaire is required for all visitors ages 12+. Visitors ages 6+, staff, and volunteers are required to wear masks on the premises.

(Online) The Hidden History of Women-Led Slave Revolts
2022-01-26 19:30 - 20:30
Join Evenings with an Author (online) to discuss
WAKE: The Hidden History of Women-Led Slave Revolts
with lawyer, historian, and writer Rebecca Hall
Click here to RSVP
In her new graphic novel WAKE: The Hidden History of Women-Led Slave Revolts, Dr. Rebecca Hall asks what gaps exist in accepted historical narratives, and what techniques we have at our disposal for not only making these gaps visible, but for remedying them. Piecing together the lives and experiences of enslaved women at the front of slave revolts through painstaking archival work, while also detailing her own experience bringing this history to light, Hall reinserts Black female resistance into the very historical record which had previously excluded even the possibility of such a phenomenon.
Weaving together in-depth research with personal narrative, the novel is both an historical account and a commentary on history. It embraces a practice of careful imagination–of the names of women, of their biographies, and of their outcomes–which in turn demonstrates the value of imagination as a tool in historical reconstruction. Rejecting the position of the distanced historian who describes history without participating in it, Hall has deliberately inserted herself into the narrative, assuming the responsibility and the emotional weight which her position as teller of these women’s stories entails. Frequently compared to other graphic novels such as Maus and Persepolis for its striking combination of image and text, the work enacts a confrontation of the historical with the present, showing readers that no one is exempt from the wake of the past.
Click here to RSVP
About the speaker:
Rebecca Hall is a tenants’ rights lawyer and historian. She was a 2020-21 scholar-in-residence at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. She has taught at UC Santa Cruz, UC Berkeley, and was a visiting professor of law at the University of Utah. Hall is a committed activist and has worked to support movements in women’s and LGBT rights, Climate Justice, and Black Lives Matter.
Registration required. Free and open to the public.
Click here to RSVP

(Online) The Subversive Simone Weil
2022-01-25 19:30 - 20:30
Join Evenings with an Author (online) to discuss
Simone Weil: A Life in Five Ideas
with Professor Robert Zaretsky
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In 1929, Simone de Beauvoir and Simone Weil, both students, had a brief and heavily-mythologized confrontation. Having started the conversation, de Beauvoir stressed her belief in human freedom. Weil responded that feeding humankind took priority. And when de Beauvoir maintained her initial point, Weil told her, quite simply, “It is easy to see you have never gone hungry.”
Simone Weil was in a particularly suited position to make this retort, having renounced her bourgeois background in order to, among other pursuits, work in a car factory and volunteer in the Spanish Civil War. A Marxist and an anarchist, as well as, later, a Catholic mystic, Weil and her life present many enigmas. The supreme achievement of researcher and writer Robert Zaretsky’s new book, The Subversive Simone Weil: A Life in Five Ideas, is its reading of the complexities of Weil’s work as complementary contradictions of her life. Identifying five central concepts from Weil’s writing, Zaretsky deftly explores each one by way of Weil’s biography, demonstrating how her experience informed and inspired her politics and ethics. An original approach to an original philosopher, Zaretsky unifies Weil’s actions with her thought, arguing that, above all, the philosopher conceived of ideas as, first of all, practice.
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About the speaker:
Robert Zaretsky is a professor of Modern and Classical Languages at the University of Houston, specializing in European political and intellectual history. He is the author of many works, including A Life Worth Living: Albert Camus and the Quest of Meaning (2013), Boswell’s Enlightenment (2015), and the forthcoming Victories Never Last: Reading and Caregiving in a Time of Plague (2022). Zaretsky is a frequent contributor to the New York Times, Washington Post, and Boston Globe, and is the former history editor for the Los Angeles Review of Books.
Registration required. Free and open to the public.
Click here to RSVP

Bookworms: "Echo" (ages 9-12)
2022-01-23 14:00 - 15:00
BOOKWORMS!
The book club for 9-12-year-olds!
CLICK HERE TO REGISTER.
In January, we’ll be reading Echo by Pam Muñoz Ryan, which was a 2016 Newbery Honor Book.
About the book: Lost in the Black Forest, Otto meets three mysterious sisters and finds himself entwined in a prophecy, a promise, and a harmonica. Decades later three children, Friedrich in Germany, Mike in Pennsylvania, and Ivy in California find themselves caught up in the same thread of destiny in the darkest days of the twentieth century, struggling to keep their families intact, and tied together by the music of the same harmonica.
How Bookworms works: Sign-up HERE to reserve a spot for this book group. When we meet on 23 January, each participant will be expected to have finished the book, so that we can discuss the story in depth and create our own writing and artwork inspired by the story. This event is free for Library members, and registration is required.
Caregivers are expected to familiarize themselves with these guidelines so that we can provide a pleasant library environment for all patrons. If you have questions about events and/or collections for children and teens, please contact Children’s and Teens’ Services Manager Celeste Rhoads: celeste@americanlibraryinparis.org.
If you would like to support the Library and our services, you can donate here to help sustain this vital institution in its 100th year of service.

Body Autonomy Workshop (ages 12–18)
2022-01-22 16:00 - 17:30
Through movement, learn simple tools to understand and assert your own boundaries and needs

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER.

Bodily autonomy is the concept that individuals have the right to control what does and does not happen to their bodies. Full body autonomy means being empowered to make decisions about your health and future–without coercion or control by others. During this movement workshop, participants will learn simple tools to understand and assert your own boundaries and needs, under the guidance of Kyra Hauck & Lauren Hlubny, co-directors of Danse Theatre Surreality (DTS).
DTS works to cultivate performance and programming which emboldens women & tgnc artists of all colors and affirms the value of their diverse perspectives. With regular workshops and performances in the United States and France, DTS diligently drives the conversation on inclusive gender rights by seeking to generate change in the arts community and beyond. Find out more about DTS here. Find out more about Hauck’s work on the Se risquer project here.

Advance registration is required for this event. Participation in this workshop is open to Library members, and free of charge. If you are not yet a Library member, but would like to participate, please join the Library before this session.

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER.

About Kyra Hauck: Kyra is a pluri-disciplinary choreographer, dancer, and teacher living in Paris, where she has been creating since 2017. Her work is dynamic, challenging, and feminist. She began dancing at age 2, tagging along to stretch class with her mother. Kyra has trained in styles ranging from classical ballet to contemporary and modern dance to contact improvisation with master teachers from the Eisenhower Dance Center, the University of Michigan Dance Department, and all around Paris. Kyra has performed in various BFA and MFA thesis works, and with Ann Arbor Ballet Theatre and Ann Arbor Dance Works. In 2015, Kyra moved to Paris to pursue a Master’s degree in translation. In 2016, she met Lauren Hlubny, and Danse Theatre Surreality was born.

About Lauren Hlubny: Lauren is a Brooklyn-based maker of dance-theatre. Hlubny’s professional directorial debut was at the Dali Museum in St. Petersburg, FL—an original 40-minute surrealist dance-theatre work titled DALI. Since then, she has created and mounted experimental works for communities in San Francisco, New York City, Seattle, Boston, Birmingham, Portland (ME), Paris, and Florence. Hlubny’s theatre training is in Stanislavski, Grotowski, and Meyerhold, with a distinct focus on the intersection of movement and storytelling. Hlubny has an extended background in classical ballet, art history, and anthropological research. These, along with experience in music and circus arts, give Hlubny a unique and informed hold on conducting creative rehearsals and shaping cohesive productions where people can speak completely different artistic “languages” while pushing the boundaries of contemporary performance and multi-disciplinary art.

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER.

This event is free for Library members, and registration is required. Library users are expected to familiarize themselves with these guidelines so that we can provide a pleasant library environment for all patrons. If you have questions about events and/or collections for children and teens, please contact Children’s and Teens’ Services Manager Celeste Rhoads: celeste@americanlibraryinparis.org.

If you would like to support the Library and our services, you can donate here to help sustain this vital institution in its 100th year of service.

Art and Collage with Alexandra Vangsnes (ages 6–12)
2022-01-22 11:00 - 12:00
For ages 6–12

Learn how to make your own original collages with the help of artist and illustrator Alexandra Vangsnes.
Using the work of American author/illustrator Christian Robinson as inspiration, Alexandra will show participants how to create collage pieces using painted paper, cutouts, and more. The Library will provide all the necessary supplies for this workshop!
Children ages 0–6 must be accompanied by an adult at all times when inside the Library, and for the duration of this event. Children between the ages 7–12 may participate in the program on their own, while their chaperone remains inside the Library.
About Alexandra Vangsnes: Alexandra is originally from the state of Virginia, and currently lives in Paris, France with her husband and daughter. Her family is from Norway, and she is very inspired by folk costumes and traditional knitting techniques from Norway and other Northern European countries. You’ll often find Alexandra reading, writing, drawing, cooking, listening to records, doing yoga, or knitting. You can see Alexandra’s Etsy shop here.
This event open to Library members, and registration is required. Parents and other caregivers are expected to familiarize themselves with these guidelines so that we can provide a pleasant library environment for all patrons. If you have questions about events and/or collections for children and teens, please contact Children’s and Teens’ Services Manager Celeste Rhoads: celeste@americanlibraryinparis.org.
CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

If you would like to support the Library and our services, you can donate here to help sustain this vital institution in its 100th year of service.

Teen Night: Rock U. Trivia Night (ages 12–18)
2022-01-21 19:00 - 21:00
For ages 12–18

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

Join Matt Black, creator of Rock U., for a series of musical quizzes and games to test your musical knowledge. No need to be an expert at rock music to play—all teens are welcome: diehard music fans and those just looking to discover great music and great people. Participants should download the free app Kahoot ahead of time, so we can play! Several devices will be available at the Library for those who do not have a device to download the app.

About Matt Black: Matt Black has worked as an educator for more than 30 years, and gets big thrills as a guitarist and vocalist with beloved Paris party band The Doodads. In 2012, he searched Paris for a rock band program for his daughter—and when he couldn’t find one, he created Rock U. instead! Matt works with Rock U. students on the techniques of playing together to craft a live band performance. Learn more about Matt Black and Rock U. here.
Advance registration is required for this event. Participation in teen events is free for Library members. If you are not yet a Library member, but would like to participate, please join the Library. A signed permission slip is required to attend this event.

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER
Questions about collections and programs for teens can be sent to the Library’s Children’s and Teens’ Services Manager, Celeste Rhoads: celeste@americanlibraryinparis.org.

We thank you for your continued support and for being a part of the Library community! If you would like to support the Library, you can donate here to help sustain this vital institution in its 100th year of service.
