Summer is officially here, and so is this year’s Summer Reading Challenge! Celebrate both by attending HCPL’s festival of fandoms—Fandomonium — on Saturday, June 24, 1-5PM at Fairfield Library. We hope you’ll join us for an afternoon full of drop-in activities, workshops, cosplay, games, and more!

Happy Pride Month! June 1 marks the beginning of Pride, a month-long celebration of the history and impact of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer (questioning), intersex, and asexual identifying community. HCPL offers a variety of programs, some year-round, plus books and resources to support LGBTQIA+ individuals and families. Read on to learn more about upcoming programs and recommended titles from our collection to help you learn about and celebrate Pride!

Henrico County Public Library’s 2023 Summer Reading challenge, "All Together Now," is all about celebrating kindness, friendship, and unity. During last year’s Summer Reading challenge, the community read nearly 80,000 books. In the spirit of this year’s theme, the library is challenging the community to read 100,000 books together between June 15 and August 15 (pre-registration begins June 1). Read on to learn more about this year's challenge!

Our next library profile highlights one of our biggest and busiest libraries —Twin Hickory. Twin Hickory was born in July 2007 when the old Innsbrook Library near Broad Street closed its doors for good. Read on to learn more about the current Twin Hickory location and how its grown over the years!

May is Mental Health Awareness Month, and the library is offering programs for stress management, self-care, and mindfulness to help support your personal wellbeing. You can also access helpful information and resources on a variety of mental health topics through the library’s collection and databases. Read on for information about programs supporting wellness and mindfulness, books from our collection that address mental health, and resources with high quality information on mental health topics, all available free at the library this month and every month.

Explore STEM concepts at the library! STEM, which stands for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, is a multidisciplinary and inquiry-based teaching approach that encourages hands-on learning to help students build critical thinking, problem-solving, and communication skills (Virginia Department of Education). Dive into the wonderful world of STEM with several regular programs for children, teens, and families at the library. Read on to find out more!

We’d like to thank Jamie Ford and the community for joining us for an evening of conversation and fun! We hope everyone enjoyed themselves as much as we did. What a wonderful way to kick-off our return to an in-person All Henrico Reads event!

In this year’s All Henrico Reads title, The Many Daughters of Afong Moy by Jamie Ford, main character Dorothy Moy is a poet laureate who channels her pain and trauma into her art. Poetry remains a running theme throughout the novel, as Dorothy pays homage to other poets and their verses.

Feeling inspired, I gave myself a mission to read more poetry and to figure out why I liked it. Along the way I have discovered many amazing poets, poetry collections, and writers. The library is a great place to find new poets! April is National Poetry Month, and this month, we challenge you to do the same. Here’s how I did it.

Tap into your creative side! March is Youth Art and National Craft Month. In addition to events this March, the library offers art-centered programs all year-round to help foster creativity and self-expression in children and young adults. Whether it’s crafting, painting, or journaling, we offer something for everyone. No experience necessary! Read on to learn more about our upcoming programs and recommended resources.