Fox Chase Library

Books on hold
If we don’t have a title in the library, you can always place it on hold and it will be sent to us from another branch.

(Mim says she’ll help.)

Send a message to learn more

Pride and Banned Books...

Since 2021, ALA has tracked a sharp spike in censorship attempts in libraries. OIF tracked 4,235 unique titles challenged in 2025, the second highest ever documented by ALA. The highest ever documented was 4,240 in 2023. Of the unique titles challenged in 2025, 1,671 (40%) represent the lived experiences of LGBTQIA+ people and people of color.

To learn more:
https://www.ala.org/bbooks/frequentlychallengedbooks/top10

Have you ever wanted to work for the Free Library of Philadelphia? Do you have your MLIS? Librarian 1 position is now accepting applications:

Job Opportunities | Philadelphia If this is the first time you are applying using our online job application, you will need to create an account and select a Username and Password.

Looking for folding card tables and an extra mahjong set if anyone has some!

https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/TT0VRUPYKKWO?ref_=wl_share

From our friends at Northeast Community Fridge

Many of our neighbors are loosing their SNAP benefits, many of our neighbors are on a fixed income, many of our neighbors have kids home from school and have to think about more meals, many of our neighbors don’t have a kitchen or the ability to cook. They often turn to the fridge.

We need to scale up rapidly to meet the growing demand in our community. We are looking to partner with local places looking to take direct action.

Are you a businesses owner who wants to help? Do you work at a place who throws away perfectly good food? Do you think we can partner for a fundraiser? Reach out! We’ll do all the heavy lifting.

Please share!

We have a new Boggle board up in the children's section! What words can you find?

From our friends at the Pennsylvania Department of Health

Harmful algal blooms (HABs) can happen anytime, but they’re most common in late summer and early fall. People and pets can get sick if they touch, swallow, or breathe in contaminated water while swimming or boating. You can also be exposed by eating fish from contaminated water, using it to cook, or drinking it.
📝 Report HABs: https://bit.ly/4dmjniM
ℹ️ More info: https://bit.ly/4nEH8WE

From our friends at A Mighty Girl

Today, Americans mark Juneteenth, the anniversary of June 19, 1865, when news of freedom finally reached the last enslaved people in Galveston, Texas. "We celebrate 160 years of freedom for the enslaved human beings who weren't even considered people when the Declaration of Independence was signed," declared Opal Lee on last year's anniversary -- the retired Fort Worth schoolteacher known as the Grandmother of Juneteenth, who did more than anyone to make this day a national holiday.

In 2016, at the age of eighty-nine, Lee set out to walk from her home in Texas to Washington, D.C. She covered two and a half miles at a time -- one for each of the years that freedom was withheld from the people of Galveston, after the Emancipation Proclamation -- and as she went, she gathered more than a million signatures urging Congress to recognize the day. "I decided that maybe if a little old lady, eighty-nine years old, in tennis shoes walking from Fort Worth to Washington, somebody would pay attention," she said. Somebody did.

On June 17, 2021, Juneteenth became a federal holiday -- the first new one since Martin Luther King Jr. Day in 1983 -- and Opal Lee, then ninety-four, stood among those gathered at the White House as President Biden signed it into law. He called it one of the greatest honors of his presidency, and the room rose to give her a standing ovation.

For Opal Lee, June 19 had once meant something very different. On that day in 1939, a mob of some five hundred White people gathered outside the Fort Worth house her parents had bought only days before, in a neighborhood that did not want a Black family in it. Twelve-year-old Opal and her siblings were sent to a friend's house a few blocks away; her parents fled after dark. The mob tore the house apart, dragged the furniture into the street, and burned it, while the police stood by and watched. Her parents never spoke of it again.

Lee went on to become a teacher and a counselor in Fort Worth, ran a food bank and a community farm, and spent decades helping the families around her. The mob had come for her family on June 19. She spent the rest of her life turning it into a day of freedom for everyone.

Now ninety-nine, the Grandmother of Juneteenth puts it simply: "We can get so much more done together than apart."

For an inspiring picture book about Opal Lee's fight to make Juneteenth a national holiday, we highly recommend "Opal Lee and What It Means to Be Free" for ages 5 and up at https://bookshop.org/a/8011/9781400231256 (Bookshop) and https://amzn.to/4ev1qh3 (Amazon)

She has told her story for adult readers in a new memoir "A Committee of One" at https://bookshop.org/a/8011/9780063459014 (Bookshop) and https://amzn.to/4oDQqmc (Amazon)

There is also a new graphic novel about her life for ages 10 and up "First Freedom: The Story of Opal Lee and Juneteenth" at https://bookshop.org/a/8011/9781637157770 (Bookshop) and https://amzn.to/3SlFcqD (Amazon)

Opal Lee is one of the newest addition to the Inspiring Women Doll series for ages 6 and up at https://amzn.to/4gqA4eM

For books for children and teens about more pioneering African American women, visit our blog post "99 Books about Extraordinary Black Mighty Girls and Women" at https://www.amightygirl.com/blog?p=14276

You can also find books about courageous women who fought for equality as part of the U.S. Civil Rights Movement in our blog post "50 Inspiring Books on Girls & Women of the Civil Rights Movement," at https://www.amightygirl.com/blog?p=11177

Thanks to The King Center for sharing this image!