La Hora Mágica

Episode Transcript

Adwoa Adusei Hey, Krissa.

Krissa Corbett Cavouras Hi Adwoa,

Adwoa Adusei So, we have some news to share with our listeners.

Krissa Corbett Cavouras That’s right. I’m actually recording this from … San Francisco, in California!

Adwoa Adusei Honestly, you sound like you’re only on the other side of the borough … not the other side of the country!

Krissa Corbett Cavouras [Laughs] Well, I will say, in the three years that we have been recording Borrowed remotely, this is possibly the furthest I've been because this is my new home. My family has re-located to San Francisco. So, on a more serious note, this is my last episode with Borrowed, and my chapter with BPL and as co-host of this podcast is coming to an end.

Adwoa Adusei You don’t know how much you’ll be missed. Not just on Borrowed, but listeners probably don’t know how much you’ve done for the library — helping with website re-design, emails, marketing … there are so many pockets of this institution that will bear your marks for years to come.

Krissa Corbett Cavouras Thanks, Adwoa. It’s a big transition, for sure. But I stand by the fact — apologies to my new home city — that Brooklyn is the best place in the world, and BPL is the best library system.

Adwoa Adusei But, you’re not gone yet! We’ve still got one more episode together.

Krissa Corbett Cavouras That's right. So, before I left the east coast for good, our producer Virginia and I got to go to Sunset Park Library and sit in on a bilingual storytime. And, longtime listeners may remember that Sunset Park is my home. So, this isn’t just an audio postcard from the library — it is also a love letter to the neighborhood that I lived in for 15 years.

Adwoa Adusei I’m Adwoa Adusei.

Krissa Corbett Cavouras And I’m Krissa Corbett Cavouras. You’re listening to Borrowed: stories that start at the library.

Roxana Benevides Ready? So, this is ... estos ... bienvenidos. Buenos días. ¿Estamos ahora en la hora de ... ?

Krissa Corbett Cavouras On a grey and rainy Wednesday, librarians Ana Alzugaray and Roxana Benevides open the programming room at Sunset Park’s interim library. Ana puts chairs in a circle, and props open picture books, mostly in Spanish, on a cheerful table at the front of the room. There’s a bin of noisemaker toys and a hardworking CD player. 

Roxana Benevides ¿Es la hora de las mamas? No ... ¿Que hora es esta? ¿La hora de ...? ¿De quiénes? De los niños, de los pequeños. Y decimos por eso ... [Singing: Es la hora, es la hora ... es la hora de cantar. Cantaremos, cantaremos. ... ]

Krissa Corbett Cavouras There are fifteen small humans here in various stages of crawling, cruising, toddling, clapping — and while we start out with little faces hidden behind their grownups’ knees, soon enough, the kids are stomping and giggling. 

Ana Alzugaray Oftentimes, singing or dancing allows those children who have that learning style to increase their vocabulary.

Krissa Corbett Cavouras This is children’s librarian Ana Alzugaray.

Ana Alzugaray Playing is just as important as the reading and the singing and the dancing, because it's not just the reading that we learn by.

Krissa Corbett Cavouras Especially after the pandemic interrupted usual socializing for kids, this playing time they get with other toddlers at La Hora Mágica is vital. At the periphery of the storytime, SJ and her daughter Ayla were watching the kids and the caregivers.

Krissa Corbett Cavouras Do you like storytime Ayla?

[Ayla squawks]

Krissa Corbett Cavouras Squawk? Okay. Maybe...

SJ Her older sister who is four, when she was a toddler, loved storytime. We came every week. And with Ayla we’re only just now going back into the world. Which means it's her first time out in the world.

Krissa Corbett Cavouras The librarians brought out toy bins and the kids started playing with noisemakers and blocks. I sat down with a very shy Ayla …

Krissa Corbett Cavouras I like blocks. I like to make towers. I'm just going to build a tower. I don't know what will happen to my tower ... achoo. [Sound of blocks falling.] Oh my goodness!  

Krissa Corbett Cavouras Though there is a lot of playing and singing, books are still a central part of La Hora Mágica. At one point, Ana hands out small board books to each of the kids, and invites their grownups to sit down with them and flip through the books. Here’s Roxana.

Roxana Benevides Everybody is actually modeling what should happen at home, in which they can handle a book, so that their motor skills can actually start. For the little ones, it will be grasping. The adults don’t have to read the entire story, it will be more like describing what they’re seeing in the book. And in that way they are increasing their vocabulary.

Krissa Corbett Cavouras And so for five quiet minutes, everyone does just that — sure, some of the toddlers are still more interesting in cruising along the circle of chairs, but basically all of them at some point do find themselves with a book in their hands, bent over the words and pictures. Soon, Ana takes the center chair and begins to read a picture book in Spanish.

Ana Alzugaray "Una gallinita roja que vivía en una granja … "

Krissa Corbett Cavouras La Hora Mágica has been the heart of Sunset Park’s storytime programming for a decade now, since Roxana saw a need in the community back in 2013 and stepped in to fill it. In a school district meeting that Roxana was attending, educators were discussing how kids from immigrant families in the neighborhood were coming into Pre-K and Kindergarten with a noticeable gap in their literacy. The problem was that immigrant families in the neighborhood are understandably so focused on making sure that their first-generation kids are learning and speaking English — that sometimes it meant they were reluctant to communicate in their mother tongue outside the home. Roxana gave an example of an interaction that a Spanish-speaking parent had with their kid.

Roxana Benevides They were going into, like outside, and they suddenly saw a bird or something … apparently, they had read a book which had the character was that bird. Let's say that it was gaviota … “Oooh!” That's what it was. And repeated the word in English. He had no concept. And the reason why is the Latino family thought that by teaching Spanish to the child they were hurting the learning process, the language. So that was they in how the La Hora Mágica came about. Whatever language it is, the one that you have, whatever language that you do, whatever reading that you do, do it in the language that you actually dominate, the one that you're fluent in. The worst thing that you can do is not being able to communicate with your child.

Krissa Corbett Cavouras Today, a decade after identifying that need in our community, La Hora Mágica has returned to Sunset Park. Despite a pandemic that closed our branches and programming for nearly a year, this little room on 4th Avenue in Sunset Park is once again filled with babbling, laughter, dancing, and joy.

Roxana Benevides ¿Vamos a comenzar? Los pollitos ... pío, pío, pío ... [Singing: Los pollitos dicen pío, pío, pío ... cuando tienen hambre ... ]

Krissa Corbett Cavouras La Hora Mágica is serving two missions at once — encouraging Spanish-speaking residents, who make up about 35 percent of the neighborhood — to speak, read, and play with their children in their native language, and also encouraging their neighbors — who speak English, Bangla, Chinese, and many other languages — to learn a bit of Spanish. We talked to Nazia and her daughter Arusa, who were gathered on the rug.

Nazia We speak Bangla at home and she listens to Spanish and English whenever we’re outside. She talks a lot, new words every day. 

Krissa Corbett Cavouras Sidonie, who’s nanny to a toddler named Juniper, doesn’t speak Spanish, but was gamely reading Spanish words aloud to her:

Sidonie Most of the time it's in English, so I think this is my second time for the Español. So, I'm happy. I’m learning, because I love to learn different languages.

Krissa Corbett Cavouras And, Sunset Park doesn’t only do storytimes in Spanish … 35 percent of Sunset Parkers identify as Asian, mostly Chinese-speaking, so on Wednesdays, La Hora Magica is in Spanish and English, and on Fridays, Brainy Babies is in Mandarin and English. 

Roxana Benevides So, one of the things that we accomplish with the La Hora Mágica and that we see that is families coming who speak Chinese, who speak Bangladesh or Urdu etc. and they're coming and they're bringing their kids. And the reason why they're coming with La Hora Mágica or Mandarin … that at least you're able to say good morning and thank you, you know, to your neighbor.

Ana Alzugaray [Singing: Uno, dos, tres deditos, quatro, cinco seis deditos ... ]

Krissa Corbett Cavouras So, even if you don’t speak any Spanish at all, you’re welcome at La Hora Mágica in Sunset Park. And, this is by no means the only bilingual storytime in Brooklyn, either. There are Bengali storytimes in Kensington, Russian storytimes in Brighton Beach, Polish storytimes in Greenpoint and Haitian Kreyole storytimes in Flatbush. With songs and toys, picture books and dancing, with librarians and caregivers circled around these little Brooklynites, these storytimes are all working the same magic.

Adwoa Adusei Borrowed is brought to you by Brooklyn Public Library. This episode was written and hosted by Krissa Corbett Cavouras, and produced by Virginia Marshall, with help from Fritzi Bodenheimer, Robin Lester Kenton, Ali Post, Jennifer Proffitt, and me, Adwoa Adusei. Our music composer is Billy Libby. Meryl Friedman designed our logo. You can find a transcript on our website: BKLYN Library [dot] org [slash] podcasts.

Krissa Corbett Cavouras Brooklyn Public Library relies on the support of individuals for many of its most critical programs and services. To make a gift, please go to B-K-L-Y-N-library [dot] org [slash] donate. Special thanks to the staff at Sunset Park Library and all the kiddos and their caregivers that we met that day. And, listeners, though I’m going to be gone from your ears, the Borrowed team has a whole season of amazing audio planned just for you. 

Adwoa Adusei That’s right. We’ll be talking romance novels and robotics league. We’ll check in with how the library is supporting asylum seekers and creating pathways to employment for all kinds of Brooklynites. And we’ll be doing it all in a slightly different format. Like this audio postcard that Krissa just brought us, we’ll have one host for each episode, and they’ll be shorter episodes about one topic. It’s something new we’re trying as we work behind the scenes on something even bigger and more exciting.

Krissa Corbett Cavouras And I will be listening from California!

Adwoa Adusei We’ll try to do you proud.