Check out What’s New on the Pratt’s Website

We’re so excited about all of the new changes on our website!  New sections dedicated to young children, kids, teens, and adults highlight all of the resources the Pratt has to offer. The new site is also mobile-friendly so it’s easy to navigate. 

Another one of our favorite parts is the What’s New section on the homepage. You don’t have to look far for the latest materials available from the Pratt Library. Take a look at the eBooks you can download, and the books and DVDs you can reserve for Sidewalk Service.

Sex and Vanity
by Kevin Kwan Book|eBook|Audiobook

Troubled Blood
by Robert Galbraith Book
Friends and Strangers by J. Courtney Sullivan
Book|eBook|Audiobook
The Order
by Daniel Silva
eBook

The Lost and Found Bookshop
by Susan Wiggs
Book
Humankind
by Rutger Bregman
Book
Caste
by Isabel Wilkerson Book|ebook|Audiobook
My Life As A Villainess
by Laura Lippman
Book|eBook
We’re Better Than This by Eljah Cumings
Book

The Photograph
DVD

Birds of Prey
DVD
The Invisible Man
DVD

If you haven’t visited the new prattlibrary,org yet, go ahead and check it out now!

Go Back to School with Film Fridays at the Pratt

By Tom Warner, Best & Next Department

No more pencils no more books
No more teacher’s dirty looks
Out for summer, out till fall
We might not come back at all
– “School’s Out,” Alice Cooper

Despite Alice Cooper’s wishful thinking, school is not out forever. In fact, as the traditional beginning of the new school year approaches this fall, school is in full session on Kanopy – Enoch Pratt’s free online video streaming resource that you can access using your library card – even if school buildings themselves remain closed due to the coronavirus. With that in mind, be sure to join Pratt librarians Tom Warner and Gillian Waldo online at noon on September 11 for their Film Fridays: “Back To School” talk about two Kanopy films that explore the world of the school room – one a tender documentary and the other a depiction of youth in revolt:  


To Be and To Have (2002)
In French with English subtitles

The film won the 2003 César Award for Best Editing and the 2002 Prix Louis Delluc. Click here to watch the trailer.

The one-room “single class” schoolhouse, where one teacher instructs several grades at once, is generally regarded as a quaint thing of the past and a symbol of obsolete and ineffective teaching methods. However, To Be and To Have offers an in-depth look at a small school in rural France where one remarkable man, the soon-to-retire Georges Lopez, has been doing the job of a small teaching staff for 20 years, and has taught several generations of bright and capable children along the way. This touching, award-winning documentary depicts how one teacher can make the all the difference in the world to his students, helping them move onto the next grade or the next school and to grow up to be kind, thoughtful people. According to Philadelphia Inquirer critic Steven Rea, “To Be and to Have is a movie every teacher should see, and every parent, too.”


If… (1968)

The film won the Palme d’Or at the 1969 Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for Best Direction at the 1969 BAFTA Awards. Click here to watch the trailer.

Taking its title from Rudyard Kipling’s famous poem of Victorian-era stoicism and starring a young Malcolm McDowell as “Mick the Rebel,” director Lindsey Anderson’s If... is a social satire that tells the story of an upper-crust British boarding school where the relationship between the students and the authorities becomes increasingly contentious, leading to a standoff. If… was made three years before McDowell’s international breakout role as nihilistic droog Alex in Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange and the two parts share some similarities: a rebellious refusal to play by society’s rules or to blindly obey authority figures. And both resort to violent fantasies, with McDowell’s Mick Travis proclaiming, “One man can change the world with a bullet in the right place.” If madness is the only sane response to an insane world, as psychiatrist R.D. Laing once famously observed, then Mick and his mates’ rebellion against the class-conscious oppression of the British public school system is a textbook case of normality. Anderson would reunite with McDowell in 1973’s O Lucky Man!


And, since tomorrow is the ninth anniversary of 9/11, Tom and Gillian will also discuss a short film available on Kanopy that explores the impact of 9/11 as seen through the eyes of a nine-year-old girl whose Tribeca childhood is shattered by the tragic events of September 11, 2001.

I Live At Ground Zero (2002)

Out of her classroom window, Isabella had seen bodies falling from the north tower, an unforgettable sight that instantly propelled her into a maturity beyond her years.


More Back-to-School Docs That Rock

As the nation prepares to go back to school (virtually or otherwise), it’s a good time to start thinking about our educational system and all the challenges facing students, teachers, parents and learning institutions themselves as we move forward. Before the actual school doors open, we can reflect on the way we learn by watching any of the 150 different Education documentaries that you can stream on Kanopy for free using your library card. Kanopy provides subcategories for various special interests, such as public schools, teachers, arts education, anti-bias education, and Special Ed

A few films have even looked at Baltimore schools, such as Richard Chisolm’s Cafeteria Man (2011), Amanda Lipitz’s Step (2017) and HBO’s Hard Times At Douglass High (2008); though the latter two films aren’t on Kanopy, you can still watch them on DVD using Pratt’s Sidewalk Service or Books By Mail resources.

Free Educational Resources to Help You with Back to School

For many it’s the first day of school and we are betting that it looks a lot different than what we all used to. Whether learning in the classroom or from home, there’s one thing that hasn’t changed: the Pratt Library’s commitment to learning.

Here’s a look at a few of the educational resources that the Pratt Library has available. Check them out!

One on One Homework Help & Tutoring . With HelpNow connect with expert tutors, skills building, a 24-hour writing lab, and more.

Educational eBooks for Students. Find curated databases and ebooks with TeenBookCloud, TumbleBookLibrary, and TumbleMath.

Educational Resources for Middle School. Students can find reference content with videos, newspapers, primary sources and much more by using Gale In Context: Middle School.

Enciclopedia Estudiantil Hallazgos. Don’t miss World Book’s excellent editorial content, rich media, and interactive features in Spanish.

Kanopy Gets Out the Vote!

by Tom Warner, Best & Next Department

With less than 100 days until the 2020 presidential election, Kanopy – the free video streaming resource you can access using your Pratt library card – has curated a collection of films that focuses on history and disenfranchisement as it relates to voting in the United States. Hopefully, watching films like Dark Money, Answering the Call, Beyond Elections, and others from Kanopy will inspire us all to vote and make our voices heard this November! For more information on voting in Maryland, please visit The State Board of Elections website here.

BEYOND ELECTIONS (2008, Credit-free) In 1989, the Brazilian Worker’s Party altered the concept of local government when they installed participatory budgeting in Porto Alegre, allowing residents to participate directly in the allocation of city funds. Ten years later, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez was swept into power with the promise of granting direct participation to the Venezuelan people; who have now formed tens of thousands of self-organized communal councils. In the Southern Cone, cooperative and recuperated factory numbers have grown, and across the Americas social movements and constitutional assemblies are taking authority away from the ruling elites and putting power into the hands of their members and citizens.

THE CANDIDATES (2018) Since 1996, the student body of Townsend Harris High School has been staging the longest running civics experiment in the form of simulating the American electoral process against the backdrop of the real one. In these elaborate mock elections that span an entire semester, candidates must run the whole gamut of an election Grand simulation replete with fake money, media pundits, campaign ads, debates, electioneering, super PACs, and candidates’ spouses. The Candidates dives into the halls of Townsend Harris High School during the months leading up to the 2016 election.

DARK MONEY (2018) This acclaimed documentary (nominated for Best Documentary Feature at the 2019 Academy Awards for the Grand Jury Prize in Documentary at the Sundance Film Festival) examines one of the greatest present threats to American democracy: the influence of untraceable corporate money on our elections and elected officials. The film takes viewers to Montana – a frontline in the fight to preserve fair elections nationwide – to follow a local journalist working to expose the real-life impacts of the US Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision.

ANSWERING THE CALL (2016) The bloody attacks of protestors in Selma on “Bloody Sunday” in 1965 led to the historic protection of all Americans’ right to vote. This film explores a cherished family story of Selma and the current state of voter suppression in America.

VOTING MATTERS (2018) When a key section of the Voting Rights Act was struck down in 2013, several states with a history of racial discrimination immediately attempted to pass laws that further restricted voter rights. This film follows civil rights attorney Donita Judge as she helps several voters in Ohio cast ballots even though they initially were turned away.

And don’t forget that 2020 is the Women’s Suffrage Centennial year. Celebrate the 100th anniversary of the 19th amendment that granted women the right to vote by watching these free Kanopy suffrage documentaries.

Pioneering Political Women
Long before Kamala Harris became the first Black (and first South Asian) Vice-Presidential candidate, there were other political pioneers of Women’s Rights, such as Shirley Chisolm (the first Black Congresswoman and the first Black woman to run for President) and Elaine Ferraro (the first female Vice-Presidential running mate). Kanopy chronicles their stories in the documentaries below:

Discuss films with Tom and Humanities Librarian Gillian, every other Friday at 12pm during Film Fridays.

Need a Crime Thriller or a Rom-Com? Check out Reviews from our Summer Challenge Participants

Anna Marie R. on The Five by Hallie Rubenhold: If you’re looking for gory true crime murder details this is not your book. Instead, you get a well thought-out history of how Jack the Ripper’s “Five” confirmed victims ended up being where they were when they were killed. Fascinating insights into Victorian mores and a real picture of these women, generally branded “prostitutes,” who had amazing stories. A reminder that no one is worthless.

The Five
by Hallie Rubenhold
Book|eBook

Shawna P. on Would Like to Meet by Rachel Winters: Want a romance with plenty of humorous, disastrous meet-cutes? Would Like to Meet includes all of that. I loved reading this novel. Evie is so clumsy and forgetful that she is the main character that you would yell at your TV to get her act together. I love Ben and his little girl Anette, the photography and school play scenes were my favorite! And this is the perfect beach/pool read because I read it in two sittings. So fast, and wonderful.

Would Like to Meet
by Rachel Winters
Book|eBook

Himani S.  on Long Bright River by Liz Moore: Philadelphia, the heroin epidemic of America, the blue code of silence among police officers. These are the threads that run through this fun, quick summer read.

Long Bright River
by Liz Moore
Book|CD|eBook|Audiobook

Laura M. on Horrorstör by Grady Hendrix: A unique and modern horror story set in a big box furniture showroom that’s not QUITE like the blue and yellow Swedish one you know. Not for kids, this tale occurs during an overnight shift where Amy and her coworkers realize the consequences of a seance in a store built over the site of a notoriously cruel penitentiary. It will have you looking for your hex wrench to find a way out!

Horrorstor
by Grady Hendrix
Book|eBook

Amy Y. on Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel: This is a beautiful novel. It seems maybe a little masochistic reading this in COVID-19 days, but while it alludes to the worst horrors of a pandemic and post-apocalyptic life, this book does not delight in cruelty and focuses more on hopefulness than horror. If anything, living in our current times makes the characters longing for a previous era more poignant. This is a story about the connections we make as humans, about the fragility and resiliency of humanity, about the small things and moments that really matter in the end.

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel Book|CDs|eBook|Audiobook

Thank you to everyone who participated in Adult Summer Challenge 2020!