Monday, January 27, 2025

Learning Express Library

Learning Express Library is a popular go to resource for students, adults and professionals who seek to achieve their educational and occupational goals. The database comes equipped with a wide variety of practice tests, skill builders, tutorials and ebooks. Organized into targeted learning centers, it offers a complete selection of interactive tutorials, practice tests and ebooks essential to improve academic skills, earn a high school equivalency, prepare for college, join the military, obtain professional certification, find a job, change careers, become a U.S. citizen and much more.

The eight learning centers are:

Career Preparation: Prepare for military, real estate, nursing, law enforcement, civil service, teaching, commercial driver’s license and trade exams

High School Equivalency Center: Prepare for the GED in English and Spanish, HiSET etc.

College Admissions Test Preparations: ACT, SAT, AP, PSAT, TOEFL

Grades 4-8 Educator Resources: Skill building lessons and practice for guiding elementary and middle school learners

High School Students: Math, English, Science, Social Studies, Technology, logic and reasoning skills improvement for classroom and homework improvement

College Students: CLEP, college placement and graduate school admissions exams; math, science, grammar and reading skills review

Adult Core Skills: Citizenship exam resources; build on your math, reading, grammar and speaking skills

Recursos Para Hispanohablantes: Learning, career and citizenship tools in Spanish

Watch this tutorial for a quick overview:


All you need is a valid Worcester Public Library card to access the resource from our website. Click here, select Learning Express Library from the alphabetical list, and create your own account. Registration requires a valid email address and a password. This will guarantee your work in progress and score reports can be saved. You will also be able to revisit any practice tests, so you can refer back to them later.
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New Releases - February Edition

Check out these highly anticipated new releases featuring fiction and nonfiction titles. Click on the title to request a copy or get your name on the waitlist. Don’t forget to watch for more featured releases next month!

NONFICTION

Food for Thought: Essays and Ruminations by Alton Brown.  Food Network host Brown (Good Eats: The Final Years) details his culinary career in this appealing memoir in essays, which takes readers from the author’s early life in North Hollywood, Calif., through his stints at Iron Chef America and Cutthroat Kitchen. As a child with a penchant for “unorthodox flavors,” Brown developed an early fascination with food science, and attended culinary school in New England before finding work at a bakery. While in school, he dreamed up the concept for his first show, Good Eats, which put a cheeky spin on food science, and recounts the bumpy road to getting it produced on the Food Network. Elsewhere, Brown reveals what he hates to cook (hard shell blue crab); examines famous scenes of cooking and eating in Hollywood blockbusters including The Godfather and Apocalypse Now; and shares some of his favorite regional dishes, like Nebraska’s unlikely combination of chili and cinnamon rolls. The author’s dry wit (“I’ll never go back because I don’t want to see the inevitable change that forty years have wrought,” he writes of a magical trip to an Italian village. “Looking in the mirror is bad enough”) makes this irresistible for home cooks and foodies alike. It’s another delicious treat from Brown. Copyright 2024 Publishers Weekly.

Fearless and Free: A Memoir by Josephine Baker, Anam Zafar, Sophie Lewis & Ijeoma Oluo.  Published in the U.S. for the first time, this memoir captures the experience of talking to Baker (1906–75) more than the experience of being her, leaving her mystery intact. Released in France in 1949, it comprises Baker's side of her dialogue with journalist Marcel Sauvage, who began interviewing her in 1926. Some interviews were initially translated into French and are now retranslated to English, so there are several layers of interpretation between Baker and the page. However, the memoir captures how Baker thinks and feels (her empathy for suffering people comes up often) and her philosophies of life and performance (she says she never rehearses because she's not a machine and finds randomness beautiful). It only lightly covers some experiences that readers would surely like to hear about (such as how Baker came to perform in Manhattan's Plantation Club) but covers others, such as her travels through Europe, in detail. Baker also speaks vividly about working in French intelligence during World War II and being used as a political symbol. VERDICT This dialogue with Baker revels in her poetic and often humorous way of speaking. Pair with Chris Chase and Jean-Claude Baker's authoritative biography Josephine Baker: The Hungry Heart.—Sarah Wolberg Copyright 2025 Library Journal.

American Poison: A Deadly Invention and the Woman Who Battled for Environmental Justice by Daniel Stone.  Science writer Stone (Sinkable) offers an enthralling biography of Alice Hamilton (1869–1970), who led a prescient but failed battle to ban leaded gasoline in the 1920s. A medical doctor interested in pathology, by her early 30s Hamilton had “singlehandedly” created the field of industrial medicine, the study of the impacts of chemicals and other environmental factors on industrial workers. As the first woman offered an appointment at Harvard, she began documenting cases of dementia, palsy, and early death in workers—and found they were all connected to lead exposure. This put her on a collision course with engineer Thomas Midgly Jr., inventor of leaded gasoline, a cheaper and more efficient fuel that was quickly adopted by the burgeoning automobile industry. Hamilton led the crusade against leaded gas, offering studies that proved “lead was harmful in almost any context... to every bodily organ.” The U.S. surgeon general called a 1925 summit to investigate the matter; Stone paints the proceedings as a masterpiece of manipulation by Midgly’s Ethyl Corporation, which lied and obfuscated its way to victory. (Leaded gasoline wasn’t fully banned until 1996.) Stone’s depiction of Hamilton is a captivating portrait of a privileged daughter of wealth whose eyes are slowly opened to capitalism’s exploitation of the poor (“I had begun to realize how narrow had been my education, how sheltered my life. I wanted to go into that underworld and see for myself,” she later wrote). Readers will be riveted. Copyright 2025 Publishers Weekly.

FICTION

Harlem Rhapsody by Victoria Christopher Murray.  In 1919, high school teacher Jessie Redmon Fauset's passion for writing captures the attention of W.E.B. Du Bois and secures her a trailblazing job as the first Black woman literary editor at The Crisis, the NAACP magazine founded by Du Bois. An excited Jessie moves from Washington, DC, to New York City to start the job, but she's hiding a secret: Du Bois, Jessie's new boss, has also been her long-distance lover for years. Now that they're both in Harlem, it will be harder for Jessie and the married Du Bois to keep their affections hidden from everyone. As years pass, Jessie becomes a more and more integral part of The Crisis, especially in cultivating new young writing talents such as a 17-year-old Langston Hughes and a 16-year-old Countee Cullen. But when she finds herself clashing, both professionally and personally, with Du Bois, Jessie is faced with an agonizing choice between her loves.  Copyright 2024 Library Journal.

Moonlight Healers by Elizabeth Becker.  Becker debuts with a work of historical fiction and magical realism. The Winston women have long been able to bring people back to life. This is news to Louise Winston, who accidentally brings back her best friend when he dies in an accident. Desperate to know what happened, she turns to her grandmother and, through a tattered family diary, learns her family's history and begins to navigate her own legacy.  Copyright 2024 Library Journal.





 Loca by Alejandro Heredia.  Heredia's debut novel looks into the lives of two friends, Sal and Charo, who are from the Dominican Republic but find themselves in New York in the late 1990s. Strong narratives present readers with a taste of what life was like for these friends growing up under challenging conditions in which one had to be tough and have street smarts to survive; life in New York is not any easier for either of them. Charo is a 25-year-old mother who works in a supermarket and is in a controlling relationship. Sal teaches science to kids and is in a relationship with his boyfriend, Vance. . . VERDICT With themes of relationships, love, and family, this tale will resonate with readers who have faced hardships and who have had to search for and embrace their identity. A welcome addition to collections.—Shirley Quan.  Copyright 2025 Library Journal.

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Tuesday, January 14, 2025

Black History Month 2025


WPL Resources


Black History Month Reading list - A selection of fiction and nonfiction titles highlighting Black authors and books on Black history.

Black Women Poets - A collection of classic and contemporary poetry by Black women poets.

How to Be an Antiracist Booklist - Titles to help you understand and respond to racism.

Cookbooks & Cooking Memoirs for Black History Month - A selection of cookbooks written by Black authors to celebrate their culinary heritage.

Langston Hughes: Poet of the Harlem Renaissance - Read about one of the most talented and prolific writers to emerge during the Harlem Renaissance.

Mysteries and Crime Fiction by Black Authors - A selection of Black-authored mystery novels featuring Black detectives, private investigators, and amateur sleuths.

Sci Fi & Fantasy by Black Authors - Want to read more Black authors but don't know where to start? Check out these recent sci fi & fantasy reads.

Worcester Public Library Events

Virtual Program, Wednesday, February 5, 7 - 8 pm
Registration required

Worcester Public Library, Thursday, February 6, 6:30 - 9:30 pm

Join us in celebrating one of Jamaica's finest - Robert Nesta Marley for his 80th birthday. This is an all ages celebration of Bob's music and message with vendors, art, local performances, and more!
Presented by Ourstory Edutainment & The Village Worcester

Saxe Room, Worcester Public Library, Friday, February 7, 11 am - 2 pm
This event is free and open to all. Food will be provided. HIV resources will be available. 

Each year, AIDS Project Worcester hosts National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day to raise awareness and highlight the disproportionate impact of HIV in the Black communities, to increase access to HIV education, prevention, testing and treatment, to mobilize community involvement and to combat HIV, recommit to sharpen efforts to focus on research, highlight the progress made from then (40 years ago) and now, consider challenges around prevention of HIV transmission among Black people and to promote prevention, screening, testing, and treatment for individuals living with HIV and for those at risk for HIV. 

Registration required

Hawkins explores the role of racism-triggered childhood trauma and chronic stress in shortening his ancestors' lives, using genetic testing, reporting, and historical data to craft a moving family portrait. This book shows how genealogical research can educate and heal Americans of all races, revealing through their story the story of America—a journey of struggle, resilience, and the heavy cost of ultimate success.

Banx Room, Worcester Public Library. Saturday, February 22, 4:15 - 5:15 pm

The destruction of the Laurel/Clayton neighborhood in the name of "urban renewal" was a major and traumatic milestone in the history of the city. Join Local History librarian Alex as we trace the history of both Laurel/Clayton and its dissolution as well as the major players in what happened.

First Floor Meeting Room, Worcester Public Library, Wednesday, February 26, 7 - 8 pm
Registration required


Book displays throughout the Main Library:
1st Floor
Fiction by Black Authors

2nd Floor
Notable Black American Biographies 
Cookbooks by Black Authors 
The Fight for Civil Rights

3rd Floor
Black Artists
Honoring Black Veterans in American History

Book Display at the Worcester Senior Center:
Throughout the month of February, WPL will host a Black History book display at the Worcester Senior Center. These books are not part of our collection and are yours to keep — they do not need to be returned to the library. A special thanks to the Friends of the Worcester Public Library for their generous donation of these books.

Worcester Community Events

Saturday, February 1, 4 - 6pm
Worcester Center for Crafts, Krikorian Gallery 25 Sagamore Road, Worcester, MA

The Worcester Black History Project and the Black Arts Collective of New England in collaboration with the Worcester Center for Crafts explore the history, resilience, and contributions of African American labor through diverse artistic expressions.

Saturday, February 8, 5:30 - 9:00 pm
Mechanics Hall, 321 Main St, Worcester, MA 

“Courage to Dream” will tell the courageous faith stories of Black and Brown immigrants who have journeyed to Worcester County in search of a better life. Through performances by local artists, actors, choirs, and culinary creatives, we will celebrate their resilience and contributions.

Thursday, February 13, 12 - 2 pm
Major Taylor Museum, 2 Main Street Worcester, MA 

This in-person event will feature engaging presentations, interactive activities, and discussions about the impact of Douglass's work on American history. Come celebrate and learn about this influential figure in the fight for equality and justice. Don't miss out on this opportunity to commemorate **Black History Month** in a meaningful way. We look forward to seeing you there!

Wednesday, February 26, 7 - 9 pm
The Hanover Theatre for the Performing Arts, 2 Southbridge St., Worcester, MA 

Black Angels Over Tuskegee is an incredibly energetic and emotionally gripping drama that documents the journey of six brave men who defied all odds to succeed. The play follows the struggles of the first African American aviators in the US Army Air Forces, also known as the Tuskegee Airmen, as they fought against injustices during the Jim Crow era. With determination, patriotism and brotherhood, they pushed towards their dreams of a fair and inclusive society.

This event is FREE to the public. RSVP’s requested.

Learn More


The Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC)  is the only national museum devoted exclusively to the documentation of African American life, history, and culture. It was established by an Act of Congress in 2003, following decades of efforts to promote and highlight the contributions of African Americans, throughout the year. The museum’s Black History Month online resources are available to explore, including a dedicated Black History Month webpage. 


The Library of Congress, National Archives and Records Administration, National Endowment for the Humanities, National Gallery of Art, National Park Service, Smithsonian Institution and United States Holocaust Memorial Museum join in paying tribute to the generations of African Americans who struggled with adversity to achieve full citizenship in American society.
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