ways to read for free
SORA–latest books for free like Kwame Alexander’s new 1000 word poem–must read!
MackinVIA–lots of audiobooks & healing titles
SORA & MackinVIA–our library platforms
Author: saralissapaulson
SORA–Online Reading for Free
This Book is Antiracist is our Whole School “Drop Everything and Read” selection for 2020-21
Read it or listen to it on SORA – Our school and public library online reading platform
Step-by-Step log in directions:
- Find my School: “NYC Department of Education”
- Log in: Use your DOE email username/password (set it up here with your OSIS #)
- Add a library: Link your NYPL BPL QPL library accounts to access more on SORA.
- To learn more: Watch this 2-min TUTORIAL
Lift Every Voice Nationwide Celebration of 250 years of African-American Poetry
2021 LIFT EVERY VOICE CELEBRATION
I am going to read Oak & Ivy by Paul Laurence Dunbar. What about you?
Read a Black poet online at Sora and MackinVIA.
To log in, set up your Dept of Ed email & log in w/those credentials
Set up your NYPL BPL QPL library accounts to access more on SORA.
Questions? Support?
Email your school librarian Lissa at lissa@cityas.org
February Break Reading Challenge: Read or listen to a book on a FREE platform
MACKINVIA – our free CAS audiobook platform (& ebooks!)
Select City As School
Log in WITH DOE email username/password (find easily here with your OSIS #):
SORA–Our public library platform
WITH DOE email username/password (find easily here with your OSIS #):
What I’m reading:
Noteworthy events at our library and New York City’s public library!
| STAY INFORMED City-As Students and staff are eligible for FREE digital delivery of The New York Times. Please email lissa@cityas.org using your cityas email with subject heading ADD ME. |
 No Earth without Art, the CAS lit/art/culture mag, is calling for submissions of photos, poems, stories, artwork, songs. Get published! Send submissions to lissa@cityas.org by Jan 31, 2021. Staff entries are welcome also: docs, jpegs, mp3s & mp4s are all accepted. Teachers can nominate student work with student permission. |
| Virtual Book Clubs & EVENTS: NYPL and WNYC’s Virtual Book Club https://www.nypl.org/virtualbookclub  |
| Oprah’s Book Club https://www.oprah.com/app/books.html  |
| Andrew Luck’s Book Club https://andrewluckbookclub.com/  |
| Queens Public Library Virtual Teen Programs https://www.queenslibrary.org/programs-activities/teens  |
| Brooklyn Public Library Virtual Teen Book Club https://www.bklynlibrary.org/calendar/ya-book-discussion-clap-virtual-20210126  |
| Brooklyn Public Library’s Night of Ideas https://nightofphilosophyandideas.com/participants  |
| Black Health and Healing Virtual Summit–Queens Public Library https://blackhealth.queenslibrary.org/?utm_source=homepage&utm_medium=carousel&utm_campaign=blackhealthsummit_general  |
New Books!!
We won a NYCDOE Civics for All grant. Wonderful titles!! Place a hold on one today and I will deliver it to you or mail it to you. HOW? Email me at lissa@cityas.org the title you want OR
Log into our CAS catalog
with your DOE username & the password: nyclib16.
(Or if you know your password, log in using your DOE email & password.)
Welcome back to School Fall 2020!
FINDING PHYSICAL BOOKS during COVID-19
@City-As-School
Students can place a hold on physical books at City-As by logging into our CAS catalog with their DOE username & password: nyclib16. Teachers use their DOE login & own password. Or email me at lissa@cityas.org.
City-As Grab and Go services start 10/1 in the courtyard: pick up a great selection of free books, crafting materials, and your CAS library holds. Build your home library and study space this fall. New genres & crafting materials every week with quarantining instructions included (see below).
@New York Public Library (NYPL)
- Get your NYPL library card on the app SimplyE. It is free.
- With that login and password, you can place holds on physical books at NYPL, and
- Pick them up at Hudson Park Library on Leroy Street (tutorial), a block away from school. Check out their new titles.
WEEKLY PICKS for reading & exploring
Calling all YouTubers: Playlists are a kind of online binge watching. Perhaps.
Mathematicians
Crafters/Fashion designers
Sushma is so clear in her handiwork and you learn so much in so little time!
Thinkers
Indiashastra knows how to augment reading into true learning. I appreciate the very old school humor also.
Writers
Forget Youtube. Reading sentences will help you in writing sentences. So let’s get deep but basic with a pencil paper and you.
Our mantra, don’t give up on books!!
“reading is not optional.” — walter dean myers
Reading & Book clubbing at home
Here are some of our folks at home, reading and participating in all things bookish. In our 3-day intensive, we had discussions on Meet, chatrooms, and reflected on our books via mindmaps and beautiful long pages of writing. Our Read-a-thoners created two collective poem, and you can see their book picks!
“A Month” by the Read-A-Thoners, composed 4/16:
Thoughts
Time
Looking out, looking in
Distancing and connection
Insanity Peace Change
Our collective quote poem, “Snatches of Truth”:
‘What should I believe?’ thought Shadow, and the voice came back to him from somewhere deep beneath the world, in a bass rumble: ‘Believe everything.’” (American Gods by Neil Gaiman-Matthew)
“It’s like I’ve been walking up the walls of a tower my whole life,” “My body parallel to the ground, and then, the world turns and I’m standing straight up, and the tower is lying flat on the ground. Everything is now distorted but my head is up again, and I’m walking forward. But the truth is, I don’t know which way is up.” (Braised Pork by An Yu–Hayden)
“The boy knelt by the hearth, his jacket sleeves rucked up on his wrists like an accordion.” (Anarchists’ Club by Alex Reeve–Nick)
“Dusk is an uncomfortable time, the way the light is.” (Klickitat by Peter Rock-Lissa)
“Just a little bomb and all these people would be gone…” (Dead Man’s Folly by Agatha Christie–Cash)
“In major cities wracked by the drug war, [4 of 5] young African-American men are subject to legalized discrimination for the rest of their lives” (The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander–Olivia)
“You get to the other side of the tightrope….” (Love Hurts by Rodro Linzler–Desiree)
“I was living in a self-destructive riot of sensuality, and while my schoolmates saw me as a leader, a devil of a fellow and a damned sharp and clever guy, deep inside me hid a timid soul fluttering with fear” (Demian by Herman Hesse–Hannah)
WEEKLY PICKS for reading & exploring
Calling all writers: Join the Why I Rise Poetry contest: deadline is May 8th
“Turn a bad experience into something good” Details here.
This is a short doc about the Why I Rise movement:
Along with ART, we celebrate the EARTH with the Staten Island Museum–April 25th at noon a whole playlist of How-to videos will drop….how to make ink with walnuts, how to make a hydroponics system using a recycled 5-gallon water bottle, how to infuse cooking oils with seeds and herbs, and much more!
NY Wild Film Festival – Watch films about our EARTH….check out the free streaming movies on darkness and endangered “language of light” of fireflies celebrating WILD NYC:
Brilliant Darkness: Hotaru in the Night from BonSci Films on Vimeo.
NYC’s 520 miles of waterfront!:
And, as always, find some time each day to immerse yourself in a book to de-stress, empathize with others and know you are not alone…..Here is a curated list of ebook & audiobooks for City-As-School students & staff. For access for those outside of our community, please send a request!
