Teens ages 12-17 are invited to test their library knowledge and see how many items on our list they can find. Prizes awarded to those who can find the most the quickest! Program will take place at 6:30pm on Thursday, July 23 at DeMott Lane. Please click here to register or go to www.franklintwp.org
Italo ‘Tal’ Naccarato, composer, songwriter, teaching artist and instrumentalist (guitar, banjo, keyboards, harmonica), was born in the medieval mountain village of Fiumefreddo Bruzio in Calabria, Italy and raised in East Flatbush, Brooklyn. His stylized original work, highlighting a deep appreciation for traditional Folk and Americana Roots music, is steeped heavily in Rock and Blues and includes his original classical guitar inspired compositions, performed with a ‘bluesy swing’.
The library is now accepting applications for virtual volunteers for Franklin residents ages 12-17 who are interested in earning volunteer hours this summer. Please click here for more information and a link to the application. The application will be open until July 20, 2026.
On January 1, 1863, President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation and freed all the enslaved people in the Confederate states. Because some states were still under Confederate control, the proclamation could not be enforced everywhere. On June 19, 1865, Union soldiers marched into Texas – the last state to still uphold slavery – and freed the remaining enslaved people. Juneteenth is now a federally recognized holiday to commemorate this day. Many people celebrate with family gatherings, parades, festivals, and other expressions of joy. Below are some books about Emancipation, Juneteenth, and celebrating Black joy!
We have a full calendar of events planned at all library locations for this upcoming month, June 2026! Click here for our full calendar, which also includes young adult and children’s programs.
Ageless Grace – Tuesday, 6/16 at 1:30pm. Franklin Park Branch.
Men and women are joining in the fun of this evidence-based seated exercise, using the cutting edge science of neuroplasticity: the brain’s ability to change. Every class is different and uses imagination/creativity, memory/recall, kinesthetic learning, analytical thinking, and strategic planning. Click here to register.
Artists’ Eyes on the American Revolution – Tuesday, 6/16 at 6:30pm. Virtual Event.
Gilbert Stuart (1755-1828) produced more than 1,000 portraits in his lifetime as he worked in eight cities: Newport, Rhode Island; Edinburgh; London; Dublin; New York; Philadelphia; Washington, D.C.; and Boston. Renowned for the accuracy of his likenesses, Stuart painted the most important Americans of his time, including presidents. His portrait of George Washington is on the one-dollar bill. Stuart could be a charming conversationalist, drawing out his sitters’ personalities (though not every story he told was true). Works of art from East Coast institutions will be highlighted in the talk. Click here to register.
Presented by art historian Michael Norris. Mike got his BA in classics from the University of California at San Diego and his MA in classics and Ph.D. in art history at the University of California at Santa Barbara. He spent twenty years at the Cloisters Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and has lectured on trips all over the world. He lives in Teaneck, New Jersey.
Part of our American Revolution Art History Lecture Series; click here to learn about and register for our section lecture in July.
The Cranberry Lacemakers of Central New Jersey – Saturday, 6/20 from 10:30am to 4:30pm. DeMott Lane Branch.
Experience the dynamic, centuries-old technique of bobbin lace making.
Join the Cranberry Lacemakers to experience and learn the fun, dynamic centuries-old technique of bobbin lace making. The group is actively seeking new members who would like to learn and preserve this craft. Email Celeste for more information about the group or if you would like to try a pattern.
No registration required, walk-ins welcome!
The Franklin Park Tragedy: A Forgotten Story – Monday, 6/22 at 6:30pm. Franklin Park Branch.
“The Franklin Park Tragedy, A Forgotten Story of Racial Injustice in New Jersey” (The History Press) provides a detailed account of the Franklin Park Tragedy murders of March 1, 1894, when Lucretia Baker and her daughter, Gertrude, were murdered in their home and her husband, Moore Baker, fought off the two African American attackers and killed them. The second part of the tragedy involves the group blame of the African American residents of the area and the expulsion of some of those residents by the Franklin Park vigilante society called the Mutual Endeavor Society. Lynchings, expulsions, and sundown town designations, which are normally associated with southern states during this era, are shown to have been contemplated by Franklin Park, New Jersey residents.
Author Brian Armstrong used surviving historical records, land records, and personal stories to demonstrate how the Great Migration of African American families from the South in the twentieth century, with the help of a new group of white farmers, changed the “sundown town” designation for the Franklin Park area. This community change began with the arrival of the Colemans and other families in the 1920s which was the beginning of the transformation of Franklin Park into the diverse place that it is today. Armstrong will also discuss prominent African American citizens of the Franklin Park area who worked on the farms and in some cases owned land during the 1800s, the role of the media in the racial issues of this era.
Preventing Tick Borne Diseases – Tuesday, 6/23 from 11am to 12:30pm. DeMott Lane Branch.
Get information on tick borne diseases, how to prevent them, and how to identify common ticks from the Somerset County Department of Health.
Visit the Somerset County Department of Health website here.
Registration is appreciated but not required to attend!
Tap Away Stress – Wednesday 6/24 at 11am. DeMott Lane Branch.
How often do you find yourself thinking about how stressed out you are? Wouldn’t it be great if there was a simple technique to gain control over your emotions and lower stress? Well, there is! It’s called Emotional Freedom Techniques or “tapping.” More than 120 clinical studies have shown that tapping on certain pressure points on our upper body can reduce fear, worry, frustration, overwhelm and other emotions that tend to keep us stuck. It can even help reduce chronic pain.
Alicia Grey, a certified EFT practitioner, will offer a workshop to introduce you to this incredible self-help tool.
The Pulitzer Prize for Fiction recognizes “distinguished fiction published during the year by an American author, preferably dealing with American life.”
Winner: Angel Down by Daniel Kraus
Private Cyril Bagger has managed to survive the unspeakable horrors of the Great War through his wits and deception. But his survival instincts are put to the ultimate test when he and four other grunts are given a deadly mission: venture into the perilous No Man’s Land to euthanize a wounded comrade.
What they find amid the ruined battlefield, however, is not a man in need of mercy but a fallen angel, seemingly struck down by artillery fire. This celestial being may hold the key to ending the brutal conflict, but only if the soldiers can suppress their individual desires and work together. As jealousy, greed, and paranoia take hold, the group is torn apart by their inner demons, threatening to turn their angelic encounter into a descent into hell.
Angel Down plunges you into the heart of World War I and weaves a polyphonic tale of survival, supernatural wonder, and moral conflict.
One woman, the performance of a lifetime. Or two. An exhilarating, destabilizing Möbius strip of a novel that asks whether we ever really know the people we love.
Two people meet for lunch in a Manhattan restaurant. She’s an accomplished actress in rehearsals for an upcoming premiere. He’s attractive, troubling, young—young enough to be her son. Who is he to her, and who is she to him? In this compulsively readable, brilliantly constructed novel, two competing narratives unspool, rewriting our understanding of the roles we play every day – partner, parent, creator, muse – and the truths every performance masks, especially from those who think they know us most intimately.
In this collection of one novel and three stories, bestselling author Torrey Peters’s keen eye for the rough edges of community and desire push the limits of trans writing.
In Stag Dance, the titular novel, a group of restless lumberjacks working in an illegal winter logging outfit plan a dance that some of them will volunteer to attend as women. When the broadest, strongest, plainest of the axmen announces his intention to dance as a woman, he finds himself caught in a strange rivalry with a pretty young jack, provoking a cascade of obsession, jealousy, and betrayal that will culminate on the big night in an astonishing vision of gender and transition.
Three startling stories surround Stag Dance: “Infect Your Friends and Loved Ones” imagines a gender apocalypse brought about by an unstable ex-girlfriend. In “The Chaser,” a secret romance between roommates at a Quaker boarding school brings out intrigue and cruelty. In the last story, “The Masker,” a party weekend on the Las Vegas strip turns dark when a young crossdresser must choose between two guides: a handsome mystery man who objectifies her in thrilling ways, or a cynical veteran trans woman offering unglamorous sisterhood.
The Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction recognizes “a distinguished and appropriately documented book of nonfiction by an American author that is not eligible for consideration in any other category.”
Winner: There Is No Place for Us: Working and Homeless in America by Brian Goldstone
The working homeless. In a country where hard work and determination are supposed to lead to success, there is something scandalous about this phrase. But skyrocketing rents, low wages, and a lack of tenant rights have produced a startling phenomenon: People with full-time jobs cannot keep a roof over their head, especially in America’s booming cities, where rapid growth is leading to catastrophic displacement. These families are being forced into homelessness not by a failing economy but a thriving one.
In this gripping and deeply reported book, Brian Goldstone plunges readers into the lives of five Atlanta families struggling to remain housed in a gentrifying, increasingly unequal city. Maurice and Natalia make a fresh start in the country’s “Black Mecca” after being priced out of DC. Kara dreams of starting her own cleaning business while mopping floors at a public hospital. Britt scores a coveted housing voucher. Michelle is in school to become a social worker. Celeste toils at her warehouse job while undergoing treatment for ovarian cancer. Each of them aspires to provide a decent life for their children—and each of them, one by one, joins the ranks of the nation’s working homeless.
Through intimate, novelistic portraits, Goldstone reveals the human cost of this crisis, following parents and their kids as they go to sleep in cars, or in squalid extended-stay hotel rooms, and head out to their jobs and schools the next morning. These are the nation’s hidden homeless—omitted from official statistics, and proof that overflowing shelters and street encampments are only the most visible manifestation of a far more pervasive problem.
By turns heartbreaking and urgent, There Is No Place for Us illuminates the true magnitude, causes, and consequences of the new American homelessness—and shows that it won’t be solved until housing is treated as a fundamental human right.
Finalist: A Flower Traveled in My Blood: The Incredible True Story of the Grandmothers Who Fought to Find a Stolen Generation of Children by Haley Cohen Gilliland
In the early hours of March 24, 1976, the streets of Buenos Aires rumble with tanks as soldiers seize the presidential palace and topple Argentina’s leader. The country is now under the control of a military junta, with army chief Jorge Rafael Videla at the helm. With quiet support from the United States and tacit approval from much of Argentina’s people, who are tired of constant bombings and gunfights, the junta swiftly launches the National Reorganization Process or El Proceso—a bland name masking their ruthless campaign to crush the political left and instill the country with “Western, Christian” values. The junta holds power until 1983 and decimates a generation.
One of the military’s most diabolical acts is kidnapping hundreds of pregnant women. After giving birth in captivity, the women are “disappeared,” and their babies secretly given to other families—many of them headed by police or military officers. For mothers of pregnant daughters and daughters-in-law, the source of their grief is twofold—the disappearances of their children, and the theft of their grandchildren. A group of fierce grandmothers forms the Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo, dedicated to finding the stolen infants and seeking justice from a nation that betrayed them. At a time when speaking out could mean death, the Abuelas confront military officers and launch protests to reach international diplomats and journalists. They become detectives, adopting disguises to observe suspected grandchildren, and even work alongside a renowned American scientist to pioneer groundbreaking genetic tests.
A Flower Traveled in My Blood is the rarest of nonfiction that reads like a novel and puts your heart in your throat. It is the product of years of extensive archival research and meticulous, original reporting. It marks the arrival of a blazing new talent in narrative journalism. In these pages, a regime tries to terrorize a country, but love prevails. The grandmothers’ stunning stories reveal new truths about memory, identity, and family.
Finalist: Mother Emanuel: Two Centuries of Race, Resistance, and Forgiveness in One Charleston Church by Kevin Sack
Few people beyond South Carolina’s Lowcountry knew of Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston—Mother Emanuel—before the night of June 17, 2015, when a twenty-one-year-old white supremacist walked into Bible study and slaughtered the church’s charismatic pastor and eight other worshippers. Although the shooter had targeted Mother Emanuel—the first A.M.E. church in the South—to agitate racial strife, he did not anticipate the aftermath: an outpouring of forgiveness from the victims’ families and a reckoning with the divisions of caste that have afflicted Charleston and the South since the earliest days of European settlement.
Mother Emanuel explores the fascinating history that brought the church to that moment and the depth of the desecration committed in its fellowship hall. It reveals how African Methodism was cultivated from the harshest American soil, and how Black suffering shaped forgiveness into both a religious practice and a survival tool. Kevin Sack, who has written about race in his native South for more than four decades, uses the church to trace the long arc of Black life in the city where nearly half of enslaved Africans disembarked in North America and where the Civil War began. Through the microcosm of one congregation, he explores the development of a unique practice of Christianity, from its daring breakaway from white churches in 1817, through the traumas of Civil War and Reconstruction, to its critical role in the Civil Rights Movement and beyond.
At its core, Mother Emanuel is an epic tale of perseverance, not just of a congregation but of a people who withstood enslavement, Jim Crow, and all manner of violence with an unbending faith.
The Pulitzer Prize for History recognizes “a distinguished and appropriately documented book on the history of the United States.”
Winner: We the People: A History of the U.S. Constitution by Jill Lepore
The U.S. Constitution is among the oldest constitutions in the world—and one of the most difficult to amend. At what cost? In this landmark, lavishly illustrated book, Harvard professor of history and law Jill Lepore argues that the philosophy of amendment is foundational to American constitutionalism. Challenging both originalism and the Supreme Court’s monopoly on constitutional interpretation, Lepore argues that the framers never intended for the Constitution to be kept, like a butterfly, under glass, but instead expected that future generations would be forever tinkering with it, improving the machinery of government.At the 250th anniversary of the nation’s founding and in an account as radical as Charles Beard’s An Economic Interpretation of the United States, Lepore offers a sweeping, lyrical, and democratic constitutional history, telling the stories of generations of Americans who have attempted everything from abolishing the Electoral College to guaranteeing environmental rights, hoping to mend America by amending its Constitution.
Finalist: King of Kings: The Iranian Revolution: A Story of Hubris, Delusion and Catastrophic Miscalculation by Scott Anderson
On New Year’s Eve, 1977, on a state visit to Iran, President Jimmy Carter toasted Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, King of Kings, Light of the Aryans, Shadow of God on Earth, praising Iran as “an island of stability due to your leadership and the respect and admiration and love which your people give to you.” Iran had the world’s fifth largest army and was awash in billions of dollars in oil revenues. Construction cranes dotted the skyline of its booming capital, Tehran. The regime’s feared secret police force SAVAK had crushed communist opposition, and the Shah had bought off the conservative Muslim clergy inside the country. He seemed invulnerable, and invaluable to the United States as an ally in the Cold War. Fourteen months later the Shah fled Iran into exile, forced from the throne by a volcanic religious revolution led by a fiery cleric named Ayatollah Khomeini. The ensuing hostage crisis forever damaged America’s standing in the world. How could the United States, which had one of the largest CIA stations in the world and thousands of military personnel in Iran, have been so blind?
The spellbinding story Scott Anderson weaves is one of a dictator blind to the disdain of his subjects and a superpower blundering into disaster. The Iranian Revolution, Anderson convincingly argues, was as world-shattering an event as the French and Russian revolutions. In the Middle East, in India, in Southeast Asia, in Europe, and now in the United States, the hatred of economically-marginalized, religiously-fervent masses for a wealthy secular elite has led to violence and upheaval – and Iran was the template. King of Kings is a bravura work of history, and a warning.
Finalist: Born in Flames: The Business of Arson and The Remaking of the American City by Bench Ansfield
“Ladies and gentlemen, the Bronx is burning!” That legendary and apocryphal phrase, allegedly uttered by announcers during the 1977 World Series as flames rose above Yankee Stadium, seemed to encapsulate an entire era in this nation’s urban history. Across that decade, a wave of arson coursed through American cities, destroying entire neighborhoods home to poor communities of color.
Yet as historian Bench Ansfield demonstrates in Born in Flames, the most destructive fires were not set by residents, as is commonly assumed, but by landlords looking to collect insurance payouts. Driven by perverse incentives―new government-sponsored insurance combined with tanking property values―landlords hired “torches,” mostly Black and Brown youth, to set fires in the buildings, sometimes with people still living in them. Tens of thousands of families lost their homes to these blazes, yet for much of the 1970s, tenant vandalism and welfare fraud stood as the prevailing explanations for the arson wave, effectively indemnifying landlords.
Ansfield’s book, based on a decade of research, introduces the term “brownlining” for the destructive insurance practices imposed on poor communities of color under the guise of racial redress. Ansfield shows that as the FIRE industries―finance, insurance, and real estate― eclipsed manufacturing in the 1970s, they began profoundly reshaping Black and Brown neighborhoods, seeing them as easy sources of profit. At every step, Ansfield charts the tenant-led resistance movements that sprung up in the Bronx and elsewhere, as well as the explosion of popular culture around the fires, from iconic movies like The Towering Inferno to hit songs such as “Disco Inferno.” Ultimately, they show how similarly pernicious dynamics around insurance and race are still at play in our own era, especially in regions most at risk of climate shocks.
The Pulitzer Prize for Biography recognizes “a distinguished and appropriately documented biography by an American author.”
Winner: Pride and Pleasure: The Schuyler Sisters in an Age of Revolution by Amanda Vaill
If it hadn’t been for the Revolutionary War, things might have been very different for the two women Alexander Hamilton came to describe as his “dear brunettes.” Angelica and Elizabeth Schuyler, daughters of colonial Hudson Valley aristocracy, would have followed their family’s expectations, making dynastic marriages and supervising substantial households―but they didn’t. Instead, they became embroiled in the turmoil of America’s insurrection against Great Britain, and rebelled themselves, in ways as different as each sister was from the other, against the destiny mapped out for them.
Glamorous Angelica, who sought fulfillment in attachments to powerful men, eloped with a war profiteer and led a luxurious life, charming Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and the Prince of Wales. Eliza, too candid for flirtation and uninterested in influence or intrigue, married a penniless outsider, Alexander Hamilton, and devoted herself to his career; but after his appointment as America’s first treasury secretary, she was challenged by the public and private controversies that plagued him―not least of all the attraction that grew between him and her adored sister.
When tragedy followed, everything changed for both women: one was deprived of her animating spirit, while the other gained a new, self-determined life.
Drawing on deep archival research, Amanda Vaill interweaves this family drama with its historical context, creating a narrative with the sweep and intimacy of a nineteenth-century novel. Full of battles and dinner parties, murky politics and transparent frocks, fierce loyalties and betrayals both public and personal, Pride and Pleasure brings two extraordinary American heroines to life.
The Pulitzer Prize for Memoir or Autobiography recognizes “a distinguished and factual memoir or autobiography by an American author.”
Winner: Things in Nature Merely Grow by Yiyun Li
“There is no good way to say this,” Yiyun Li writes at the beginning of this book.
“There is no good way to state these facts, which must be acknowledged . . . My husband and I had two children and lost them both: Vincent in 2017, at sixteen, James in 2024, at nineteen. Both chose suicide, and both died not far from home.”
There is no good way to say this—because words fall short. It takes only an instant for death to become fact, “a single point in a time line.” Living now on this single point, Li turns to thinking and reasoning and searching for words that might hold a place for James. Li does what she can: doing “things that work,” including not just writing but gardening, reading Camus and Wittgenstein, learning the piano, and living thinkingly alongside death.
This is a book for James, but it is not a book about grieving or mourning. As Li writes, “The verb that does not die is ‘to be.’ Vincent was and is and will always be Vincent. James was and is and will always be James. We were and are and will always be their parents. There is no now and then, now and later; only now and now and now and now.” Things in Nature Merely Grow is a testament to Li’s indomitable spirit.
We have a full calendar of events planned at all library locations for this upcoming month, May 2026! Click here for our full calendar, which also includes young adult and children’s programs.
Health Screenings for Adults – Tuesday, 5/5 from 2pm to 4pm, Franklin Park Branch AND Tuesday, 5/19 from 4pm to 6pm, DeMott Lane.
A nurse from the Somerset County Department of Health will be offering free blood pressure and cholesterol screenings. No registration required.
Advanced Beginner Sewing Class for Adults – Friday, 5/8 and 5/15 at 11am. Franklin Park.
Over the course of two sessions, adults will make their own small tote bag. This class is intended for adults with some sewing experience. Please plan to attend both sessions. Registration begins May 1 at 10:15am. Registration is required.
Colonial Tea Tastings @ Lewis Street – Wednesday, 5/13 at 3pm. Lewis Street.
Join us for a lovely chat about colonial N.J. while enjoying Boston Tea Party tea and British shortbread cookies! Colonial Tea Tastings will be a series of 5 “America 250” monthly events. No registration required.
The Cranberry Lacemakers of New Jersey – Saturday, 5/16 from 10:30am to 4:30pm. DeMott Lane.
Join the Cranberry Lacemakers to experience and learn the fun, dynamic centuries-old technique of bobbin lace making. The group is actively seeking new members who would like to learn and preserve this craft. Email Celeste for more information about the group or if you would like to try a pattern. No registration required, walk-ins welcome!
Be Wise About Your Medications – Presented by the Somerset County Department of Health – Tuesday, 5/19 at 11am. DeMott Lane.
Learn about medications, covering both generic and brand name drugs. Become familiar with the effects of medications, including allergic reactions, side effects, adverse drug events, and common drug interactions, while also learning how to use medications safely and responsibly.
A presentation from the HealthEASE Health Education Curriculum from NJ Department of Human Services, Division of Aging Services. Visit the Somerset County Department of Health website here.
Open Book, Open Minds: Historical Fiction Book Club – Thursday, 5/21 at 1:45pm. Franklin Park.
Join us for a discussion of Madame Fourcade’s Secret War: The daring young woman who led France’s largest spy network against Hitler by Lynne Olson. A limited number of copies the book are available for pick up at the Franklin Park Branch Library. Registration is not required.
Tap Away Stress – Wednesday, 5/27 at 11am. DeMott Lane.
How often do you find yourself thinking about how stressed out you are? Wouldn’t it be great if there was a simple technique to gain control over your emotions and lower stress? Well, there is! It’s called Emotional Freedom Techniques or “tapping.” More than 120 clinical studies have shown that tapping on certain pressure points on our upper body can reduce fear, worry, frustration, overwhelm and other emotions that tend to keep us stuck. It can even help reduce chronic pain.
Alicia Grey, a certified EFT practitioner, will offer a workshop to introduce you to this incredible self-help tool.
Community Cookbook Swap and Recipe Demonstration – Saturday, 5/30 from 12pm to 3pm. DeMott Lane.
Tired of the same recipes? Want to spice up your meals? If so, come swap the cookbooks you never use for some new-to-you ones! Come in, take a cookbook off the table and replace it with one of your own. It’s simple and free. You can swap up to 5 cookbooks, but if you don’t have a book to swap, you are still welcome to attend and take a book. As people swap, the selection of books will keep changing.
In addition, Rebecca from Three Birds Farm will be set up with samples of sourdough bread, a butter making demonstration, and she will be available to answer questions and share recipes.
Drop by any time between noon and 3:00 PM, and stay as long as you’d like. No need to register!
For any questions about upcoming library events, please call the reference desk at 732-873-8700 opt. 3 or leave a comment below.
