Storytime Anytime

Episode Transcript

Tenzin Kalsang My name is Tenzin Kalsang and I'm a children's librarian at the Williamsburg branch of the Brooklyn Public Library.

Adwoa Adusei Tenzin is a BPL librarian who has become a small celebrity for her storytime.

Tenzin Kalsang So far I have done I think ten storytimes, and the max I got is forty thousand. It went viral. Everyone’s talking about my storytime, so yeah… 

Krissa Corbett Cavouras So, for reference: an average virtual storytime at BPL gets between 100 and 300 viewers over two days that we’re leaving it up. So, Tenzin’s storytime is pretty amazing. And, back in March and April, when New York went on pause and BPL adjusted to this new reality of online programming, there was another conversation going on among children’s librarians in particular, which was the need for more diverse storytimes.

Tenzin Kalsang We do have, you know, multilingual storytimes throughout Brooklyn Public Library. We do have, I think, Spanish. We do have Russian, and others, I’m not sure. There are, I think, over ten thousand Tibetan speakers in New York City. And, you know, for me, I know the language. Right, so that's why I was like, okay, I'm going to try storytime. So I think in early May, I did my first storytime. And I don't know how I did it because, you know, the books that I read, it’s in English but doesn't exist in Tibetan. And the songs that I sang doesn't exist in Tibetan either. So, you know, I kind of have to invent the wheel for Tibetan speakers. I’m usually shy. So I was like, I don't know how to do this, but I think it went well.

[Tenzin reads]

Tenzin Kalsang We received so much comments like, you know, emotional comments from the viewers, and one says: “Our language is at the risk of losing. We do not have many children's book in Tibetan as we are refugees. My English is not good to read books for my daughter, too. At the same time, she's losing her mother language, which is Tibetan, as well. So, your service is language refuge for us. I'm crying with happiness.” I think, you know, like these comments, you know, full of emotions, and so then I was like, okay, I'll try to do more.

 [Tenzin speaks Tibetan]

Adwoa Adusei The Tibetan-speaking diaspora is very large because so many Tibetans have been displaced and are now refugees in countries all over the world. That’s why moving the storytimes online has been so important for Tenzin. Not only does she have families listening in New York City — but internationally, too.

Tenzin Kalsang Tibet was a country before, but in 1959, the Communist Party of China invaded Tibet. And, you know, a lot of Tibetans were exiled and many of them are in India now as exiles, refugees. And then, you know, many of them are in the United States as well. So, yeah, that's why because, you know, as they are refugees and, you know, they don't have much resources. I cannot find any Tibetan books in, you know, I mean, at Brooklyn Public Library, we don't have any Tibetan language books for kids. So that's why I have to translate all the books that I do. I have received some messages from the Tibetan weekend schools in Australia and Germany, they watch my videos to learn Tibetan. And then I again receive messages from Nepal, the monks, the monastery, the little monks, they watch my storytime for learning English. I know my English is not that perfect, right, because it's not my first language. Actually, I didn't expect that people would be watching my storytime to learn English, but, you know, I think they're doing it.

[Tenzin sings]

Krissa Corbett Cavouras Today, settle in and let the library tell you a story. I’m Krissa Corbett Cavouras.

Adwoa Adusei And I’m Adwoa Adusei, you’re listening to Borrowed: stories that start at the library.

[Music]

Adwoa Adusei Since March, BPL has offered 950 storytimes online, which have reached an audience of about 500,000 viewers. That’s pretty remarkable, given that an average of forty people, including kids and caregivers, would attend an in-person storytime at our branches, pre-COVID. And, in a lot of ways, virtual storytimes have removed barriers that people may have had in attending our in-person events. They don’t have to travel anywhere or be anywhere at a specific time. 

Krissa Corbett Cavouras Of course, this has been really isolating, particularly back in March and April, to be home all the time, and we had parents reaching out to us to say, you know, the bright spot in my kid’s week was getting to see their usual Saturday storytime librarian on their television!

Adwoa Adusei One of BPL’s most popular programs is Drag Queen Story Hour. It is exactly what it sounds like: drag queens reading story books to kids, and they’ve been conducting storytimes online throughout the pandemic as well. Here’s Cholula Lemon, a drag queen who has been performing with Drag Queen Story Hour for the past three years.

Cholula Lemon When I first heard of the program, I thought, this is a no brainer. This is the kind of programing that I wish was around when I was a kid. The response that we get is truly moving. When we talk to families, especially, and when they start to see themselves in books that we read about family diversity, and even opening up the conversation about gender diversity and things like that, that may be a little more complex, but we’re giving parents some of the tools that they need to have these conversations.

Krissa Corbett Cavouras Part of the appeal of Drag Queen Story Hour has always been the costumes that the queens wear. And it’s no different on Zoom.

Cholula Lemon It's like bringing a true live, you know, fairy princess or queen to the room. They get super excited about all that. So what I try to do is I typically wear something really bright and fun and colorful and have big hair and have tons of jewelry on. So, it's really fun seeing kids react to that, and they're always just in awe.

Adwoa Adusei When we met on Zoom, we had Cholula read one of Drag Queen Story Hour’s favorites, a book called Super Satya Saves the Day by Raakhee Mirchandani.

Krissa Corbett Cavouras So, this is going to be a fun one. If you have a kiddo in your quarantine bubble, you should put this on the speaker. Or, you should send this episode to your favorite little reader. We’re going to turn it over to Cholula…

[Cholula Lemon reads Super Satya Saves the Day by Raakhee Mirchandani.]

Raakhee Mirchandani Cholula, thank you. You read that so beautifully, and I feel like you you encapsulated, like the very spirit and soul of the book.

Adwoa Adusei That’s Raakhee Mirchandani, the author of Super Satya Saves the Day. She joined us on Zoom to hear Cholula’s reading and talk about the inspiration behind her book.

Raakhee Mirchandani I have loved sharing this with kids and families and libraries, but I think I have loved sharing it with the Drag Queens the most. I have a now almost seven year old daughter. She used to dress up like Wonder Woman every single day, like school photos, holiday photo shoots. It didn't matter. She was in a Wonderwoman costume. And I thought, wouldn't it be great if I could find a book where there was a girl who kind of looked like her, a little brown girl, dressed like a superhero. 

Krissa Corbett Cavouras So, library lover that she is, Raakhee went to her local library in Newark, New Jersey, but she couldn’t find a story about a girl superhero that looked like her daughter. She called her bookstores, she even searched Amazon and other online booksellers … nothing.

Raakhee Mirchandani And I was really disappointed. I'm a first generation American. My parents are immigrants. I grew up in New Jersey. I had that feeling of not feeling seen for a really long time, and I know exactly how disappointing that can feel when you turn on a TV show or watch a movie or pick up a book and there is not a single character that reflects you. And I was really disappointed to think that my daughter was going to grow up in that kind of world. And it was it was actually quite painful for me, and I was angry but I was also very sad.

Adwoa Adusei So, Raakhee decided to write the book she couldn’t find. And Super Satya was born.

Raakhee Mirchandani Ultimately, the story that I was looking for was mine, and nobody else was going to be able to tell it besides me. And that's the thing that I tell kids every time I go to schools, that like, this is this feels special to you because it's in a book and it's hard bound and it's very fancy and the illustrations are beautiful, but you can have that, too, because ultimately the story in this book is mine and the one that you're looking for and you can't find is yours. And so we just have to tell our stories.

Krissa Corbett Cavouras And she’s gotten an incredible reaction from her readers… 

Raakhee Mirchandani It happens every time, there will be one or two kids will raise their hand and they will ask me, are you Indian? Are you Puerto Rican? Because in this book and in me, they see themselves. And ultimately, I think I started writing this for an audience of one: Satya, my daughter, right? But what has come from this has become this great wide audience of so many children and so many parents who see themselves in this book. On the cover of the book, there's a man with a turban, right? That's exactly what my husband looks like. And when he saw the book, that man is almost forty years old, and he looked at it and he said, "You put a dad with a turban on the cover?" Like, he didn't think it was possible.

Adwoa Adusei Diverse representation is what Drag Queen Story Hour is all about, and so Raakhee was excited to partner with the organization to bring her story to kids across New York City.

Raakhee Mirchandani Every time someone will send me a photo or video of a drag queen reading Super Satya Saves the Day. And it brings me deep, deep joy because I feel like we're doing the thing that we all want to do, which is making sure that all the kids see themselves in all the stories.

Adwoa Adusei You can watch live storytimes of Drag Queen Story Hour on Facebook and Instagram, hosted by Brooklyn Public Library and also hosted by book stores and other libraries across the country. Visit dragqueenstoryhour [dot] org to see upcoming virtual events — and I really recommend watching a storytime if you haven’t. The audio version here that we played is just a taste of the magic. Now, it wouldn’t be a Borrowed episode without books! BPL librarian Juanita James recommended a few anti-racist books for kids.

Juanita James My name is Juanita James. I’m a children’s librarian at the Spring Creek branch. I think anti-racist books for kids has to show a different perspective, and celebrate the diversity, acknowledge that people are different, but they are the same as well.

My first recommendation is The Day You Begin by Jacqueline Woodson. It was illustrated by Rafael López, and I really like this book because it’s about a little brown girl who started her first day of school. And she noticed a lot of differences about how she looked and what she ate that was different from her classmates. But, she shared something about reading to her little sister, and how it transported her to different places when they read. And so, she realized that there are some similarities with her classmates after all, and she was able to make friends.

My second recommendation is Last Stop on Market Street by Matt de la Peña, pictures by Christian Robinson. It’s about this little boy named CJ, and with his grandmother, they were going on the city bus after church every Sunday. He started questioning why they didn’t have a car like his friend Koby, why he didn’t have an iPod like the teens on the bus. But his grandmother told him to look for the positive, the beauty in all things and people. And so, I really like that book because it reminds me of the relationship I have with my grandmother. My mother was a working mother, so my grandmother and I created a close bond, and she took me everywhere. 

And finally, my third recommendation is Not My Idea: A Book About Whiteness, written and illustrated by Anastasia Higginbotham. And this book talks about white privilege and racism on a kid’s level, trying to get them to understand that, to a white child that’s in the story who is questioning about the police brutality on the news. And it talks about white supremacy and the history of white supremacy. And it can help parents build a dialogue about these topics that a lot of parents really don’t think kids really understand, and believe it or not, they do understand. So this is a good discussion piece.

[Music]

Adwoa Adusei Borrowed is brought to you by Brooklyn Public Library and is hosted by me, Adwoa Adusei, and Krissa Corbett Cavouras. You can find a transcript of this episode at our website, B-K-L-Y-N Library [dot] org [slash] podcasts. Sound effects for this episode came from the BBC Sound Effects Library. 

Krissa Corbett Cavouras Borrowed is produced by Virginia Marshall and written by Virginia Marshall and Adwoa Adusei, with help from Fritzi Bodenheimer, Jennifer Proffitt, Meryl Friedman and Robin Lester Kenton. Our music composer is Billy Libby.  

Adwoa Adusei Brooklyn Public Library runs multiple virtual story times every day, in many different languages and with different themes. You can find them on our branch library Facebook pages, or on Zoom. A full schedule is available on the events section of our website. And, Drag Queen Story Hour is raising money to bring virtual story times to kids in New York City Public Schools. To learn more about their fundraising campaign, visit DQSH NYC [dot] org [slash] fundraiser. 

Krissa Corbett Cavouras Borrowed will be back in the New Year. So, until then, enjoy the holidays. Be safe, be healthy, and read a good book!