SCCM: Bilingual Circle Time
2021-07-29 10:00, 2021-08-05 10:00, 2021-08-12 10:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | Southern California Children’s Museum, 459 E. Colorado Blvd, Pasadena, CA, 91011, United States
THURSDAYS AT 10:00AM
Enjoy a fun interactive story time or sing a long in either Spanish or Vietnamese! This program is suitable for native speakers and those seeking exposure to a new language.

University Club: Thursday Nights at the Patio
2021-07-29 17:00 - 20:00 | University Club of Pasadena, 175 N. Oakland Ave., Pasadena, CA, 91101, United States

Vroman's: Jessica Goodman discusses They’ll Never Catch Us
2021-07-29 18:00 | CA
This is a virtual event and will take place on Crowdcast. Register for FREE ahead of time to save your spot and get an email reminder! Scroll down to purchase your copy of the book from Vroman’s.
EVENT LINK: TBA
Stella and Ellie Steckler are only a year apart, but their different personalities make their relationship complicated. Stella is single-minded, driven, and she keeps to herself. Cross-country running is her life and she won’t let anything get in the way of being the best. Her sister Ellie is a talented runner too, but she also lets herself have fun. She has friends. She goes to parties. She has a life off the course.
The sisters do have one thing in common, though: the new girl, Mila Keene. Both Stecklers’ lives are upended when Mila comes to town. At first, Ellie and Stella view the new star athlete as a threat. But soon Ellie can’t help but be drawn to her warm, charming personality. After her best friend moved away and her first boyfriend betrayed her, Ellie’s been looking for a friend to share her secrets. Stella finds herself noticing the ways she and Mila are similar. Mila is smart and strong–she’s someone Stella can finally connect with. As the two get closer, Stella becomes something she vowed she’d never be: distracted.
With regionals approaching and college scouts taking notice, the pressure is on. Each girl has their future on the line and they won’t let friendships get in their way. But then, suddenly, Mila goes out on a training run and never returns. No one knows what happened, but all eyes are on the Steckler sisters. (Razorbill)

SCCM: Wild California Explorers
2021-07-30 11:00, 2021-07-30 15:00, 2021-08-06 11:00 | CA
Did you know that the Washingtonia filifera is the only species of palm trees indigenous to California? Learn more about our amazing state through games, scavenger hunts and craft projects!

Vroman's: Omar El Akkad discusses What Strange Paradise
2021-07-30 18:00 | CA
This is a virtual event and will take place on Crowdcast. Register for FREE ahead of time to save your spot and get an email reminder! Scroll down to purchase your copy of the book from Vroman’s.
EVENT LINK: https://www.crowdcast.io/e/727sz19p
More bodies have washed up on the shores of a small island. Another overfilled, ill-equipped, dilapidated ship has sunk under the weight of its too many passengers: Syrians, Ethiopians, Egyptians, Lebanese, Palestinians, all of them desperate to escape untenable lives back in their homelands. But miraculously, someone has survived the passage: nine-year-old Amir, a Syrian boy who is soon rescued by Vänna. Vänna is a teenage girl, who, despite being native to the island, experiences her own sense of homelessness in a place and among people she has come to disdain. And though Vänna and Amir are complete strangers, though they don’t speak a common language, Vänna is determined to do whatever it takes to save the boy.
In alternating chapters, we learn about Amir’s life and how he came to be on the boat, and we follow him and the girl as they make their way toward safety. What Strange Paradise is the story of two children finding their way through a hostile world. But it is also a story of empathy and indifference, of hope and despair–and about the way each of those things can blind us to reality. (Knopf Publishing Group)

SCCM: Saturday Sing-Along
2021-07-31 10:30, 2021-07-31 15:00, 2021-08-07 10:30, 2021-08-07 15:00 | Southern California Children’s Museum, 459 E. Colorado Blvd, Pasadena, CA, 91011, United States
SATURDAYS AT 10:30AM AND 3:00PM
Kiddos of all ages get to explore various musical instruments while singing their favorite songs! From shakers to drums, we are ready to make some noise!

SCCM: Story and Craft
2021-08-02 10:30, 2021-08-02 15:00, 2021-08-03 10:30, 2021-08-09 10:30, 2021-08-09 15:00, 2021-08-10 10:30 | Southern California Children’s Museum, 459 E. Colorado Blvd, Pasadena, CA, 91011, United States
Join Southern California Children’s Museum for a read-aloud, and then bring the story to life through arts and crafts! From a Trailblazer who made their mark in history or an influential illustrator who brings stories to life, you will not want to miss out on this one!

Vroman's: Naomi Hirahara discusses Clark and Division
2021-08-03 18:00 | CA
This is a virtual event and will take place on Crowdcast. Register for FREE ahead of time to save your spot and get an email reminder! Scroll down to purchase your copy of the book from Vroman’s.
EVENT LINK: https://www.crowdcast.io/e/jhus7mge
Chicago, 1944: Twenty-year-old Aki Ito and her parents have just been released from Manzanar, where they have been detained by the US government since the aftermath of Pearl Harbor, together with thousands of other Japanese Americans. The life in California the Itos were forced to leave behind is gone; instead, they are being resettled two thousand miles away in Chicago, where Aki’s older sister, Rose, was sent months earlier and moved to the new Japanese American neighborhood near Clark and Division streets. But on the eve of the Ito family’s reunion, Rose is killed by a subway train.
Aki, who worshipped her sister, is stunned. Officials are ruling Rose’s death a suicide. Aki cannot believe her perfect, polished, and optimistic sister would end her life. Her instinct tells her there is much more to the story, and she knows she is the only person who could ever learn the truth.
Inspired by historical events, Clark and Division infuses an atmospheric and heartbreakingly real crime fiction plot with rich period details and delicately wrought personal stories Naomi Hirahara has gleaned from thirty years of research and archival work in Japanese American history. (Soho Crime)

Pasadena Presbyterian: Music at Noon
2021-08-04 12:00, 2021-08-11 12:00 | Pasadena Presbyterian Church, 585 East Colorado Boulevard, Pasadena , CA, 91101, United States
Friends of Music is delighted to announce that Music at Noon, our weekly half-hour concert is going online! Beginning Wednesday, November 25, your favorite Music at Noon artists will be heard and seen on YouTube and Facebook.
To see who is playing, visit ppcmusic.org.

USC PAM: Conversation@PAM: Reimagining the USC PAM Courtyard- Session II
2021-08-05 16:00 | USC Pacific Asia Museum, 46 North Los Robles Avenue, Pasadena, CA, 91101, United States
The USC Pacific Asia Museum is looking for the community’s support in reimagining its beloved courtyard through a two-session conversation panel with local specialists in the fields of historic gardens and architecture. Constructed in 1925, the courtyard has transformed over the past 90 years to become an intercultural hub in Pasadena, California, transitioning from a private residence into a community-utilized space.
As USC PAM celebrates its 50th anniversary, it is looking for ways to evolve in its accessibility and community service. These sessions are intended for conversations about the different ways in which this particular space in the museum can serve that goal. We hope to work with the public and our panel of urbanists, architects, and botanists to explore ways of increasing accessibility while preserving the courtyard’s treasured classical Chinese garden style.
Thursday, July 8th, 4:00 PM
Session I:
Join preservation architect Kelly Sutherlin McLeod, FAIA and Phillip Bloom, the Huntington Libraries Curator of the Chinese Garden & Director of the Center for East Asian Studies as they talk about the history of the USC PAM courtyard and Chinese gardens.

Thursday, August 5th, 4:00 PM
Session II:
Join our panel of experts for an interactive conversation to explore ways USC PAM can honor the courtyard’s past while making necessary changes for inclusivity and accessibility in the future.
Panelist include:
Bethany Montagano, Director, Pacific Asia Museum
Kelly Sutherlin McLeod, FAIA
Phillip Bloom, Curator of the Chinese Garden at The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens
Don Waston, USC Pacific Asia Museum Docent
Discussion moderated by Vinayak Bharne, Adjunct Associate Professor of Urbanism, USC

For questions or to request accommodations for this event please contact Cristina Hernandez-Guerrero at ch45852@usc.edu . For additional information please visit https://pacificasiamuseum.usc.edu/

Vroman's: Richard Lange with Ed Komenda, discusses Rovers
2021-08-05 18:00 | CA
This is a virtual event and will take place on Crowdcast. Register for FREE ahead of time to save your spot and get an email reminder! Scroll down to purchase your copy of the book from Vroman’s.
EVENT LINK: https://www.crowdcast.io/e/iojgrnjk
Summer, 1976. Jesse and his brother, Edgar, are on the road in search of victims. They’re rovers, nearly indestructible nocturnal beings who must consume human blood in order to survive. For seventy years they’ve lurked on the fringes of society, roaming from town to town, dingy motel to dingy motel, stalking the transients, addicts, and prostitutes they feed on.
This hard-boiled supernatural hell ride kicks off when the brothers encounter a young woman who disrupts their grim routine, forcing Jesse to confront his past and plunging his present into deadly chaos as he finds himself scrambling to save her life. The story plays out through the eyes of the brothers, a grieving father searching for his son’s murderer, and a violent gang of rover bikers, coming to a shattering conclusion in Las Vegas on the eve of America’s Bicentennial.
Gripping, relentless, and ferocious, Rovers demonstrates once again why Richard Lange has been hailed as an “expert writer, his prose exact, his narrative tightly controlled” (Steph Cha, Los Angeles Times). (Mulholland Books)

SCCM: Wild California Explorers
2021-08-06 15:00 | Southern California Children’s Museum, 459 E. Colorado Blvd, Pasadena, CA, 91011, United States

Vroman's: Alvy Ray Smith discusses A Biography of the Pixel
2021-08-06 18:00 | CA
This is a virtual event and will take place on Crowdcast. Register for FREE ahead of time to save your spot and get an email reminder! Scroll down to purchase your copy of the book from Vroman’s.
EVENT LINK: https://www.crowdcast.io/e/9fio0ay8
The Great Digital Convergence of all media types into one universal digital medium occurred, with little fanfare, at the recent turn of the millennium. The bit became the universal medium, and the pixel–a particular packaging of bits–conquered the world. Henceforward, nearly every picture in the world would be composed of pixels–cell phone pictures, app interfaces, Mars Rover transmissions, book illustrations, videogames. In A Biography of the Pixel, Pixar cofounder Alvy Ray Smith argues that the pixel is the organizing principle of most modern media, and he presents a few simple but profound ideas that unify the dazzling varieties of digital image making.
Smith’s story of the pixel’s development begins with Fourier waves, proceeds through Turing machines, and ends with the first digital movies from Pixar, DreamWorks, and Blue Sky. Today, almost all the pictures we encounter are digital–mediated by the pixel and irretrievably separated from their media; museums and kindergartens are two of the last outposts of the analog. Smith explains, engagingly and accessibly, how pictures composed of invisible stuff become visible–that is, how digital pixels convert to analog display elements. Taking the special case of digital movies to represent all of Digital Light (his term for pictures constructed of pixels), and drawing on his decades of work in the field, Smith approaches his subject from multiple angles–art, technology, entertainment, business, and history. A Biography of the Pixel is essential reading for anyone who has watched a video on a cell phone, played a videogame, or seen a movie. (MIT Press)

Boston Court Pasadena: Playwrights' Group: Unrivaled
2021-08-07 10:00 | CA
B/C PLAYWRIGHTS’ GROUP
New voices. New plays.
Boston Court has a passion for new play development and we kicked off the first B/C Playwrights’ Group in 2021. After a year of collaborative dramaturgical exploration, each play will be presented with a public virtual reading. #MakingScriptsHappen
Save-the-date for more upcoming virtual readings!
Sept 18: Lions
Oct 9: Too Grey Too Loud
Oct 23: Strawberry
Nov 13: The Resurrectionist

11th century ladies-in-waiting Murasaki Shikibu and Sei Shonagon are, to this day, two of Japan’s most beloved writers.
… They also kind of hated each other.
Unrivaled is a new play about friendship, heartbreak, and what it means to be a female artist. Perhaps most of all, it’s about how no matter how much things change, the more they stay the same… even after a thousand years.

Vroman's: Tracy Swinton Bailey discusses Forever Free: A True Story of Hope in the Fight for Child Literacy
2021-08-10 18:00 | CA
This is a virtual event and will take place on Crowdcast. Register for FREE ahead of time to save your spot and get an email reminder! Scroll down to purchase your copy of the book from Vroman’s.
EVENT LINK: https://www.crowdcast.io/e/1jj3dopq
At the root of every important problem we face, from mass incarceration to income inequality, is an education system influenced by our nation’s fraught history. Just as past generations fought to ensure that all Americans could enjoy the right to fully participate in our democracy, so must we rally tirelessly to advance an educational agenda that promotes equity and inclusion. With the gap between white academic achievement and that of students of color widening, now is the time to turn our attention to the basics, and few would argue with the fact that the single most essential aspect of a good education is literacy. Beyond reading and writing, literacy encompasses a whole host of skills that allow us to develop our potential and succeed in society, including critical thinking, self-discipline, curiosity, leadership, and motivation. Helping all our nation’s young people, especially those who live in low-income communities, improve their literacy skills should be a top priority.
Numerous programs are operating around the country to address the issue of underperformance in light of the shortcomings of our public school system. In Forever Free, Tracy Swinton Bailey charts the journey of one such program, her nonprofit Freedom Readers. From a childhood shaped by books to a career promoting the love of reading, she describes the hurdles and rewards of academia, teaching, mobilizing, and fundraising. Bailey outlines clearly and persuasively how Freedom Readers’ one-to-one tutoring model has worked in the rural South, and how it can work across the US. This book will inspire and empower readers, and should be placed in the hands of educators and organizers at every level. (Other Press)

Vroman's: Dr. Leana Wen with Lisa See, discusses Lifelines: A Doctor's Journey in the Fight for Public Health
2021-08-12 18:00 | CA
This is a virtual event and will take place on Crowdcast. Register for FREE ahead of time to save your spot and get an email reminder! Scroll down to purchase your copy of the book from Vroman’s.
EVENT LINK: https://www.crowdcast.io/e/hxuqsw6k
Dr. Wen will be in conversation with Lisa See, author of Shanghai Girls, The Island of Sea Women, and other award-winning books.
“Public health saved your life today–you just don’t know it,” is a phrase that Dr. Leana Wen likes to use. You don’t know it because good public health is invisible. It becomes visible only in its absence, when it is underfunded and ignored, a bitter truth laid bare as never before by the devastation of COVID-19.
Leana Wen–emergency physician, former Baltimore health commissioner, CNN medical analyst, and Washington Post contributing columnist–has lived on the front lines of public health, leading the fight against the opioid epidemic, outbreaks of infectious disease, maternal and infant mortality, and COVID-19 disinformation. Here, in gripping detail, Wen lays bare the lifesaving work of public health and its innovative approach to social ills, treating gun violence as a contagious disease, for example, and racism as a threat to health.
Wen also tells her own uniquely American story: an immigrant from China, she and her family received food stamps and were at times homeless despite her parents working multiple jobs. That child went on to attend college at thirteen, become a Rhodes scholar, and turn to public health as the way to make a difference in the country that had offered her such possibilities.
Ultimately, she insists, it is public health that ensures citizens are not robbed of decades of life, and that where children live does not determine whether they live. (Metropolitan Books)
