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Class on June 3 has been cancelled. Due to the popularity of Sifu Diaz's classes, we expect participants to attend all sessions and participation in this program will be decided by lottery. Join us in this twelve-week Tai Chi Paradigm practice, which focuses on the mind and body connection. Tai Chi is a fluid sequence of movements choreographed in a low impact routine. This is an in-person event at the Valente Branch. [registration for this program is closed] To enter the lottery, please register for the waitlist below. This waitlist will constitute the pool from which 15 names will be drawn randomly. Registration will open Wednesday, March 4 at 9AM and close Wednesday, April 1 at 5PM. Participants selected will be notified on Friday, April 3. Sponsored by the Cambridge Public Library Foundation

This event is canceled. We have rescheduled the program for Saturday, August 15 (link). Delve into the wonders of the natural world. Attendees will learn about different types of animal homes and use them to inspire their own creation. Recommended for ages 8-13. This program can accommodate 12 people. Tickets are available on a first come, first served basis on the day of the program. The entire party must be present to receive a ticket. This program starts promptly. Unclaimed seats will be offered to someone waiting. We appreciate your patience and understanding. Please call 617-349-4038 for more information. Funding for Summer Reading has been generously provided by the City of Cambridge, Cambridge Public Library Foundation, Friends of the Cambridge Public Library and the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners.

March 24 Class Cancelled Join us each Monday at the Central Square Branch for Chair Yoga, led by experienced instructor Louise Parker. This is an in-person program taking place in the Lewis Room at Central Square. Registration is required for each session. Louise Parker has been practicing yoga for close to 20 years. She is trained in the Yoga Shanti method of practice, which is rooted in the Iyengar and Ashtanga yoga traditions.

For four decades, Johnisha Matthews Levi believed a conventional story about her birth, picturing her happy parents at the hospital together. While sorting through her late mother's belongings, however, she discovered a document indicating that her father was instead serving time in Lorton Correctional Complex. This revelation, along with rumors about an FBI investigation of her deceased parents' "private business," leads Levi to unearth the hidden history of her family. She ties this story to public policy, demonstrating how state lottery legalization and the War on Drugs disrupted the Black institutions and communities in Washington, DC. Registration is required.

Prepare to be amazed and surprised by a presentation from the Poop Museum, where everyone learns many fantastic, fabulous and fun facts about human, animal and insect poop. Funding for Summer Reading has been generously provided by the City of Cambridge, Cambridge Public Library Foundation and Friends of the Cambridge Public Library.

Join us for a conversation about community, resilience, and activism in the Latinx community with Gladys Vega, the Executive Director of La Collaborativa in Chelsea. Gladys Vega is a groundbreaking community organizer and advocate, working relentlessly and fearlessly to ensure the Latinx immigrant community has a voice in determining how it’s needs and concerns are addressed. She believes that empowerment of the individual leads to empowerment of the community and that social action is the vehicle an empowered community can use to achieve its goals. Gladys is the architect of nearly all of La Colaborativa’s programs, initiatives, and community organizing campaigns. Her leadership has resulted in expanded rights for immigrants, low-income families, tenants, workers, youths, and people of color across Massachusetts.

To mark the 250th anniversaries of the American Revolution and the founding of the United States, a coalition of local non-profits and government agencies will present Washington in American Memory, a seven-part speaker series. Debunk myths and trace the evolution of the public memory of George Washington in Cambridge, Massachusetts, featuring: J.L. Bell, author of The Road to Concord: How Four Stolen Cannon Ignited the Revolutionary War and proprietor of Boston1775.net Charles Sullivan, co-author of Building Old Cambridge: Architecture and Development and Executive Director of the Cambridge Historical Commission

Join us for a demonstration of capoeira, a unique Afro-Brazilian art form combining martial arts, dance, music and acrobatics. Following the performance, children will have the opportunity to learn basic capoeira movements. Recommended for children of all ages and their caregivers. Funding for Summer Reading has been generously provided by the City of Cambridge, Cambridge Public Library Foundation and Friends of the Cambridge Public Library.

The LGBTQ+ Youth Celebration will be a fun and joyful event for all ages, families, and adults! Drag Queen Aurora will share their journey into drag and facilitate a discussion of queer experience and community celebration. There will also be a runway and folks are welcome to bring costumes or choose from our costume box. There will be snacks, music, and books about LGBTQ+ history!

This event was rescheduled from May 22 and will now take place on May 28. The new king Charles II sent royal commissioners to New England in 1664 in order to pressure colonists into compliance with his metropolitan agenda. When these royal commissioners tried to claim full authority over local courts and militias, Cambridge inhabitants were among the first to act in defiance. Their grassroots petition campaign drew on the experience of the English civil wars and pointed the way forward to the American Revolution. Adrian Chastain Weimer is a Professor of History at Providence College and is currently a Long-term Fellow at the John Carter Brown Library. She is the author of A Constitutional Culture: New England and the Struggle against Arbitrary Rule in the Restoration Empire (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2023) and Martyrs' Mirror: Persecution and Holiness in Early New England (Oxford University Press, 2011).