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The Saturday, May 24 event has been cancelled. We apologize for the inconvenience; please register and join us on June 14. Join us for an hour of songs, stories, and social meet-up in Mandarin Chinese with JingJing and Chelsea, two local mothers and educators. This fun and interactive session brings families together in a warm, welcoming environment. This event is for children and their caregivers. In the first half, listen to engaging stories and sing lively songs. In the second half, children will do an activity, and everyone will have an opportunity to socialize.

PanNeubean Steel is a dynamic steelpan guided ensemble delivering vibrant Caribbean rhythms with modern flair. Rooted in tradition and driven by innovation, the band brings energy, precision, and crowd-moving performances to every stage—celebrating culture, community, and the unmistakable sound of steel. PARK SOUNDS 2026 brings free outdoor musical performances featuring local artists to the front lawn of the Cambridge Public Library Main Branch. These events are all-ages. Bring a chair, food, and loved ones to celebrate the summer! Funding is provided by the CPL Foundation in memory of Janet Axelrod.

The City of Cambridge offers free, one-on-one help to residents looking to lower their energy bills. Through the Cambridge Energy Helpline (617-430-6230), callers get connected to a trained adviser who can explain cost-saving programs, from fuel assistance and discount utility rates to solar credits and no-cost energy assessments. Support is available to renters, homeowners, and landlords alike—regardless of building type.

The original program scheduled for this day with Little Uprisings will be postponed. Please stay tuned for a new date. The following description is for the program that will be on Saturday: Join friends at the O'Neill Branch to build, build, BUILD your idea of a neighborhood and a community! Let your imagination run wild with LEGOs, Magna-Tiles and other building toys. We will also have books about neighborhoods and a collaborative art project about our community. For children ages 5 and up. Children under age 7 must be accompanied by a caregiver. LEGO pieces are choking hazards for young children.

Join the Shadow, Sound, Spectacle ensemble for an evening of original live music, shadow puppetry, video projection, and gothic storytelling inspired by the works of Edgar Allan Poe, Mary Shelley, Washington Irving, Emily Dickinson, Bram Stoker, Anne Rice and more. This imaginative multimedia performance reimagines iconic gothic figures—Frankenstein’s creature, Poe’s raven, the Headless Horseman—as symbols of resistance, transformation, and queer identity. Recommended for teens and adults. Shadow, Sound, Spectacle: Literary Monsters is a collaborative performance project led by Northampton-based singer-songwriter Jess Martin (Tiny Desk Contest 2025 entrant), Boston puppeteer Amy West, and musician/visual artist Abby Hanna (Northampton-based).

Harvard Book Store and the Cambridge Public Library welcome Theaster Gates—award-winning artist, professor at the University of Chicago, and Director of Artists Initiatives at the Lunder Institute for American Art at Colby College Museum of Art—and Henry Louis Gates Jr.—Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and Director of the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research at Harvard University, and an Emmy, Du Pont, and Peabody Award-winning filmmaker, literary scholar, and institution builder—for a discussion of their new book Another View: The Vibrant World of Contemporary Black Artists, co-edited by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., featuring Theaster Gates. Registration is required.

The City of Cambridge urges residents planning to celebrate Halloween to follow the guidance from the Massachusetts Department of Public Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and to engage in only lower or moderate risk activities to minimize the risk of exposure to COVID-19. Halloween activities are subject to the current state gathering size limits as well as applicable any sector-specific workplace safety standards. Halloween activities are subject to the current state gathering size limits.

Uncover the radical roots of urban gardening with Kate Brown, author of Tiny Gardens Everywhere (2026). The history of gardening in European and North American cities in the 20th century is a story about ordinary people working with each other—and with plants and microbes—to cultivate life in the unlikeliest of places. Using the deluge of nutrients that flow into cities, working class gardeners regenerated wasteland, built the first garden city communities, and engaged in the most productive agriculture in recorded human history. Following the plants and microbes, urban gardeners also built mutual aid societies that advocated for equity, social welfare, and rights—rights not to liberty and the pursuit of happiness (who can eat that?) but to food, fuel, and shelter; to well-being for all. Kate Brown is the Thomas M. Siebel Distinguished Professor in the History of Science at MIT. Her prize-winning books include Manual for Survival: A Chernobyl Guide to the Future (2019), Plutopia: Nuclear Families in Atomic Cities and the Great Soviet and American Plutonium Disasters (2013), and A Biography of No Place: From Ethnic Borderland to Soviet Heartland (2004). Presented in partnership with City of Cambridge Community Garden Program.

Continued implementation of the Urban Forest Master Plan (UFMP) guides development of Cambridge’s tree assets and enables the City to expand the urban forest canopy and be more resilient to climate change. In FY22, Public Works reached the UFMP ecommendation of planting 1,000 trees annually. To increase long-term survival of newly planted trees, Public Works has improved pre-planting soil preparation and post-planting aftercare. In fall 2021, over 10 tons of soil from composted yard waste was used to plant 475 trees. Miyawaki Microforest.

Join editors Alexandra Natapoff and Guy-Uriel Charles, along with contributors to America Unfinished: 250 Years of Law and Governance, for a discussion of this new collection of essays marking America’s 250th anniversary. America Unfinished brings together more than 50 legal scholars from the Harvard Law School faculty to examine a pivotal moment in American law and governance. The collection’s 62 essays explore topics including the expansion of executive power, the relationship between workers, consumers, and markets, democratic accountability in a market-driven economy, and the future of knowledge and governance institutions amid rapid technological change. Contributors include Stephen Breyer, Tomiko Brown-Nagin, Noah Feldman, Annette Gordon-Reed, Randall Kennedy, Jill Lepore, Lawrence Lessig, Bruce H. Mann, Martha Minow, and Cass R. Sunstein. Sponsored by the Cambridge Public Library and the Cambridge Public Library Foundation.