Come and read to a therapy dog at Tail Waggin’ Tutors the first Tuesday of every month at the Thompson Library from 4 to 5 pm.

Bring your creativity to the library to build cool creations. Legos will be provided.

Teddy bears and other stuffed animals are invited to camp out at the library overnight. What kind of mischief will they get into?

Drop off: 10 am – 4 pm, Friday, September 9

Pick Up: 10 am – 4 pm, Saturday, September 10

Opening Kick-off celebration. Participants will learn about Hispanic cultures through music, performance, crafts, and games.

Celebración del Kick-off de apertura. Los participantes aprenderán sobre las culturas hispanas a través de la música, presentaciones, manualidades y juegos.

Come to Terry Library in your pajamas for a teddy bear program! Enjoy story time, singing songs, dancing, and doing a fun craft project. Your teddy bear/stuffed animal are invited to stick around for a sleepover at the library.

Space is limited – registration is required.

Pick up your stuffed animal on Monday, September 12 along with a goodie bag.

Share your love of plants and share your seeds!  Full plants, rooted cuttings, and fresh cuts are all acceptable to bring for trade. Commercial seeds and items from the McMath seed library will be provided. Call 501-225-0066 to reserve a table.

Between September 12-October 3, donate gently used outfits and accessories for our costume swap on October 8. Items should be freshly cleaned, in good condition, and delivered to McMath library. If donating accessories to go with a specific costume, please place them in a labeled zip top bag.

Calm, quiet time with soft music and low lighting. Coloring pages and jigsaw puzzles provided.

Express yourself with Teens 4 InQlusion! Decorate and make your own pronoun pins to wear proudly. Tweens and teens of all genders and sexualities are welcome.

This program is for our home-schooled.

We explore ideas and lean into STEAM fun.

Wednesdays at 1:00 p.m.

Make unique decorations to personalize your locker.

We craft with all kinds of materials!

For school ages K-12

Thursdays after school at 4:15 p.m.

InQlusive Reading Lounge program. Featuring and giving away free copies of Lakelore by Anna-Maria McLemore, a nonbinary Latine author.

Open to teens of all genders and sexualities, 12-19 years old.

Programa InQlusive Reading Lounge. Presentando y regalando copias gratuitas de Lakelore de Anna-Maria McLemore, una autora latina no binaria.

Abierto a adolescentes de todos los géneros y sexualidades, de 12 a 19 años.

Celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month by creating a kaleidoscopic painting guided by artist Jake Jackson. The program is limited to 10 participants and registration is required. Call 501-225-0066 to reserve your spot.

Central AR Nature Center is an expansive nature center showcasing the fish & wildlife in Arkansas through exhibits, trails & programs. On Thursday, September 15 @ 4:30pm, kids (grades 3rd-6th) are welcome to learn all about the bears in Arkansas in this fun and informative presentation!

Heather Zbinden, programs and website coordinator, and Danielle Afsordeh, community outreach archivist, will give an overview of the Roberts Library Memory Lab, personal archiving programming, and oral history toolkits, as well as genealogy resources available through CALS. Afsordeh will also share some tips on conducting oral history interviews with family members who have immigrated to the United States from Mexico and Latin America.

Register for Webinar

“Change the Painting” We’ll be painting over already painted canvases to see what creations we can manifest. Let your imagination fly! Limited space, registration required.

Practice your reading with a certified therapy dog.

At Socrates Café, participants propose questions and vote to decide the evening’s topic to explore questions from their lives through public non-academic dialog.

CALS is celebrating National Voter Registration Day on September 20! You can register to vote at any CALS location. Just ask for a form, fill it out while you’re there, and we’ll send it in for you.

Have your voice heard!

Learn how to make kombucha and take home a SCOBY starter to make kombucha at home for years to come.

Space is limited – registration is required.

Join us for a conversation with prolific British-American writer, journalist, and consummate adventurer Simon Winchester. This author talk will cover many aspects of his work across myriad fields of history, technology, and geology as well as the author’s personal expeditions, including his path to becoming the acclaimed best selling author he is today. A master storyteller, Winchester’s narrative is like a journey through time. His keen intellect and ability to precisely and expertly weave everyday life into historical examination leaves his readers feeling awestruck at the world surrounding them.

Series of crafts celebrating Latinx cultures. Learn how to create sugar skulls. This is an adult program.

Serie de manualidades que celebran las culturas latinas. Aprende a crear calaveras de azúcar. Este es un programa para adultos.

Watch anime and eat themed snacks.

Celebrate National Honey Month by examining an observation bee hive and sampling honey.

Celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month as this duet performs music from Cuba, Brazil, Puerto Rico, Spain, Mexico, and more. All ages welcome.

As you age, changes affect your lung tissue, muscles and bones, which all impact your breathing, and this is even more of an issue for those who smoke. Sierra Whitbey of the American Lung Association will present information on the importance of lung cancer screenings for Arkansans aged 50 and older, the criteria to get screened, and what a lung cancer screening looks like. This presentation will be through the American Lung Association and the Arkansas Tobacco Education Initiative.

Register Now

Join Nick Dial, Botanist at ARDOT, as he presents a program on the importance of pollinators and the benefits of growing your own food.

Have fun with friends as you figure out puzzles & riddles to escape the library.  Afterwards, enjoy ooey gooey snacks that go perfect with creepy campout tales!  Ages 12-18.

Performance by Ballet Quetzalli and taste of traditional food.

Actuación del Ballet Quetzalli y degustación de comida tradicional.

Join us for an afternoon with Pulitzer Prize finalist and PEN/Faulkner Award winner Hernan Diaz, author of In the Distance and Trust. Diaz holds a Ph.D. from NYU and edits, the Spanish-language journal Revista Hispánica Moderna, at Columbia University.

Diaz’s new book, Trust, is set during the roar of the 1920s around the Wall Street tycoon Benjamin Rask and his wife, Helen. Together, they have risen to the top of the world of seemingly endless wealth–all as a decade of excess and speculation draws to an end.

Sip punch while you complete a guided painting.

Series of crafts celebrating Latinx cultures. Learn how to create sugar skulls. This is an tween/teen program.

Serie de manualidades que celebran las culturas latinas. Aprende a crear calaveras de azúcar. Este es un programa para preadolescentes/adolescentes.

Program for ages 6-12. Space is limited Space is limited so registration is required. Contact Terry Library at 501-228-0129 for more details.

Grab-n-go goody bag for the kids to make feathered Carnaval.

Programa para edades de 6 a 12 años. El espacio es limitado El espacio es limitado, por lo que es necesario registrarse. Comuníquese con Terry Library al 501-228-0129 para obtener más detalles.

Bolsa de regalos para llevar para que los niños hagan un Carnaval emplumado.

What do native bees need from us? Listen to Leslie Cooper, Arkansas Monarch and Pollinator Coordinator with Quail Forever, and host Lynn Foster discuss what you can do in your yard to provide food and habitat for the many species of native bees in central Arkansas. Did you know that more than 90% of bee species are solitary? That 70% of bee species live in the ground? And that honeybees aren’t native to North America? Get to know our 4000 species of North American native bees and bring your questions!

Speaker: Maria Escobar

Grounded in her own experience growing up as the child of Mexican immigrants in northwest Arkansas, Escobar examines how Hispanic and Latinx young adults in a “new immigrant destination” and “second-generation sundown towns” seek belonging and safety in public spaces and institutional settings that sometimes exclude them.

Register for Webinar

Maria Escobar is a sociology professor at Albright College in Reading, Pennsylvania. She was raised in northwest Arkansas and graduated from Springdale High School in 2014.

CALS Butler Center for Arkansas Studies PRESENTS

Annual Genealogy Workshop featuring Lori Thornton

This event will be hybrid. Participants can attend in person or participate virtually via Zoom the day of the event.

THIS EVENT WILL NOT BE RECORDED AND WILL NOT BE AVAILABLE TO VIEW LATER.

How to participate

In-person: This event will be held in the CALS Ron Robinson Theater located at Library Square in downtown Little Rock.

We serve daily snack meals at our front desk for ages 18 and under.

M-F 4-5 pm

Sat 12-1 pm

Movie Day featuring McFarland USA.

Día de la película con McFarland USA.

Mosquita y Mari, a film about budding feelings between two Chicana high schoolers.

Mosquita y Mari, una película sobre los sentimientos incipientes entre dos estudiantes de secundaria Chicana.

Free meals to children ages 1-18 years.

Practice your reading with a certified therapy dog. For Kindergarten- 12th graders.

As part of our grant-funded after-school series, Thompson Library will host a kids cooking class on Wednesdays in October from 4-5PM for ages 9-12.  The wonderful Faith Anaya of Kids Cook will be the outside presenter leading the classes.

Only 12 spots are available and registration is required.  So Register today!

You can register by speaking with a staff member at Thompson Library’s circulation desk or by calling 501-821-3060

You will also need to fill out and return a liability waiver,

Teens in the Kitchen. We will cook an easy Hispanic dish. Space is limited so registration is required. Please call Children’s Library at 501-978-3870 for more information.

Adolescentes en la cocina. Cocinaremos un plato hispano fácil. El espacio es limitado por lo que es necesario registrarse. Llame a la Biblioteca Children’s al 501-978-3870 para obtener más información.

Let your imagination fly as you build with Terry’s Lego collection. What will you build? For 3rd-6th graders.

Come listen to stories!

Practice your reading skills with adorable trained therapy dogs.

We meet every other Saturday @ 1:00 pm. For ages 12+

October 8 – TEENy pottery ghosts.

October 22 – Calaveras on canvas board.

Movie day featuring The Book of Life.

Día de cine con El Libro de la Vida.

Shop for a free, gently used Halloween costume. First come, first served.

Stream Here

The Central Arkansas Library System, KUAR, and the League of Women Voters of Pulaski County will host a forum of candidates running for the position of Little Rock mayor at 6:30 p.m. on Monday, October 10, in the Ron Robinson Theater, 100 River Market Avenue. Doors will open at 5:30 p.m.

All four candidates currently on the ballot will be in attendance: Incumbent Mayor Frank Scott Jr., Steve Landers Sr., Greg Henderson and Glen Schwarz.

Tres Gotas de Agua, a 12-minute documentary about three Latine immigrant mothers sharing their experiences of their children coming out to them. After the documentary, we’ll talk about how unique the coming-out experience is for people & how cultural impact can add another layer of complexity to it all.

Open to teens of all genders and sexualities, 12-19 years old.

Tres Gotas de Agua, un documental de 12 minutos sobre tres madres inmigrantes latinas que comparten sus experiencias sobre cómo sus hijos se declararon homosexuales con ellas.

An online storytime featuring reading and baby ASL.

Video will be posted on the CALS Kids YouTube channel.

Make a pom-pom garland of Halloween pumpkins, ghosts, and spiders for your mantle or doorway!

Dissect, modify, and reassemble old toys to make creepy Frankentoys.

We invite you to join us for a talk with Dr. Aziz Gazipura, one of the world’s leading experts on social confidence as he discusses how to stop being too nice and worrying about what others might think.

Are you too nice? Do you find it hard to be assertive and ask for what you want? Did you know millions of people struggle with being “too nice”? Being nice can make it hard to speak up, say “no,” or do something that might upset someone.This talk will teach participants that the opposite of nice is not mean but rather real.

Tres Gotas de Agua, a 12-minute documentary about three Latine immigrant mothers sharing their experiences of their children coming out to them. After the documentary, we’ll talk about how unique the coming-out experience is for people & how cultural impact can add another layer of complexity to it all.

Open to teens of all genders and sexualities, 12-19 years old.

Tres Gotas de Agua, un documental de 12 minutos sobre tres madres inmigrantes latinas que comparten sus experiencias sobre cómo sus hijos se declararon homosexuales con ellas.

Come meet all the creepy crawly critters! Presented by Pinnacle. For grades 3rd-6th.

Muchos estadounidenses están preocupados por los sistemas electorales de nuestro país, a pesar de no estar de acuerdo sobre los problemas específicos o cómo resolverlos. ¿Son los sistemas demasiado fáciles de manipular? ¿Tenemos reglas que hacen que la votación sea justa y accesible para todos? ¿Estamos haciendo lo suficiente para garantizar la precisión y la credibilidad?

Esta reunión explorará estos pensamientos utilizando una guía de discusión de los Foros de Asuntos Nacionales y la guía de facilitadores capacitados.

Join us in the discussion of Wonder by R.J. Palacio, a book about a boy born with a facial deformity that has prevented him from going to mainstream school – until now.

At Socrates Café, participants propose questions and vote to decide the evening’s topic to explore questions from their lives through public non-academic dialog.

Many Americans are concerned about our country’s election systems, despite disagreeing on the specific problems or how to solve them. Are the systems too easy to manipulate? Do we have rules that make voting fair and accessible to all? Are we doing enough to ensure accuracy and credibility?

This meeting will explore these thoughts using a National Issues Forums discussion guide and guidance from trained facilitators. During the 2-hour session, you will explore questions like the following in a structured way with other members of the public:

• Would consistent national standards for voting,

Join us in conversation with popular CNN Anchor, Zain E. Asher, as she discusses her moving and inspiring memoir Where the Children Take Us.

In Where the Children Take Us, Zain E. Asher, tells the story of her mother’s harrowing fight to raise four children as a widowed immigrant in South London. There is tragedy in this tale, but it is not a tragedy. Drawing on tough-love parenting strategies, Obiajulu Ejiofor teaches her sons and daughters to overcome the daily pressures of poverty,