Offsite: Storytime w/ Frederick Joseph: Planting Hope

Event guidelines:

• All attendees are encouraged to wear face masks at all times.
• RSVP is highly encouraged but not required.
• Additional copies of the book will be available for purchase at the event.
• The reading will be followed by a book signing and seed planting activity.
• As a reminder: If you are not feeling well, please do not come to the event, even if you have a ticket; email us and we'll work it out.

If you have any questions regarding these guidelines or to request accessibility accommodations, please contact [email protected].

A child discovers a secret ingredient for nurturing plants—and for helping ailing loved ones, too—in this tender story by a two-time New York Times best-selling author celebrating the power of hope.

Everyone in Henry’s family loves plants and gardening. So why can he never get his little plant to grow, no matter how hard he tries? His mom has been able to grow anything since she was young, and even cultivated a whole orchard to help feed people who were hungry. Henry imagines his mother as a great tree, with branches wrapping around the whole community. “People and seeds have a lot in common,” his mom likes to say. “If you want them to grow strong, nourishment and sunlight aren’t enough—they also need hope.” When Henry’s mom becomes sick and it looks like she may not recover, this belief that she’s sown in her son becomes key to what happens next.

Frederick Joseph, award-winning author of The Black Friend, offers a bighearted story about keeping hope alive in the face of grief—and a gentle allegory with an upbeat message about healing a fragile planet.

Frederick Joseph is a Yonkers, New York–raised two-time New York Times and USA Today best-selling author. His books include the poetry collection We Alive, Beloved; the nonfiction works Patriarchy Blues, The Black Friend, and Better Than We Found It, co-written with Porsche Joseph; the picture book Black Panther: Wakanda Forever: The Courage to Dream, illustrated by Nikkolas Smith; and the forthcoming YA novel This Thing of Ours. He was recognized with a 2021 International Literacy Association Young Adult Book Award, was named to the 2019 Forbes 30 Under 30 list for marketing and advertising, and is an activist, philanthropist, and poet. Frederick Joseph was also honored with a 2023 Malcolm X and Dr. Betty Shabazz Vanguard Award and the 2018 Bob Clampett Humanitarian Award, and he was selected for the 2018 Root 100, a list of the most influential African Americans.

The Christopher Adlington and Nathaniel Reid Lamar Community Garden (also known as The Secret Garden) is the only community garden in Cobble Hill. For more than 50 years, Nat Lamar and his partner, designer Christopher Adlington, maintained an exquisite English garden at the site, a private garden visible from the street. After Mr. Adlington’s death, volunteers came together to tend the garden as an informal gardener group. The garden was bequeathed to the Brooklyn Queens Land Trust in 2022 to benefit the community.

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