Free banned books, Pooh’s 100th and stargazing: what NYC libraries offer this October

New York City’s three public library systems have a full October calendar. It starts with Banned Books Week, which opens Oct. 4, and runs through Halloween.

Banned Books Week events at NYC libraries

At Queens Public Library’s Hunters Point branch, the library and Penguin Random House are giving away copies of books that have been banned somewhere in the U.S. The giveaway lasts while copies remain.

Uptown, a bouquet workshop at the Fort Washington location of the New York Public Library takes its cue from Octavia Butler’s “Kindred.” Ivy Paniagua, a florist, guides participants through choosing colors and arranging stems. In Brooklyn, the Central branch is still showing two 40-foot tapestries by artist Christopher Myers. They depict characters and scenes from banned titles, among them George Orwell’s “Animal Farm” and Toni Morrison’s “The Bluest Eye.”

Civic programs are also on the calendar as part of the America 250 series. Queens Public Library and Humanities New York are presenting a three-part look at democracy and disagreement. Called Uprising/Downfall, a teach-in at Brooklyn’s Central branch covers the freedoms in the Constitution and the movements that have fought for social change. Over at the Schomburg Center, visitors can make their own zines with help from BlackMass Publishing, an independent Black press that also runs an archive.

Kids’ library events: Winnie the Pooh, stargazing and a lab on wheels

NYPL is marking 100 years of Winnie the Pooh with movies, readings, bingo and crafts in three boroughs. The Morris Park branch restages the “Bilingual Story Hour” of Pura Belpré, who became NYPL’s first Puerto Rican librarian, this time with puppets. In Brooklyn, the Windsor Terrace branch offers young visitors a virtual reality driving experience. The BioBus, a mobile lab with high-powered microscopes, comes to the Dyker Heights branch.

Throughout the month, Queens Public Library is holding events that show what the borough’s night sky would look like without clouds or city lights. It also has kids’ sessions on birding and on building balloon-powered rockets. For more on what is overhead this season, see our October stargazing guide.

Queens Public Library and NYPL both run sessions for high school seniors working through college admissions. Around Brooklyn, the Greenpoint branch teaches bike repair basics, trivia fans can head to the Center for Brooklyn History, and Flatbush hosts theater workshops for intermediate English language learners. Queens Public Library teaches the Chinese art of dough figure-making in Mandarin and English. On Oct. 31, the South Ozone branch hosts a session where participants make clay calaveras.