Events for Children in NYC This Week

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For Children

Our guide to cultural events in New York City for families with children and teenagers.

BROOKLYN BOOK FESTIVAL CHILDREN’S DAY at MetroTech Commons (Sept. 15, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.) Learning to read is a matter of stages. That’s also true of this literary celebration, but here the stages aren’t only levels of mastery but also real platforms where authors and illustrators read, make music, lead interactive exercises and otherwise perform their work. The Picture Book Stage will include appearances by the musician and writer Laurie Berkner and the author-illustrators Maira Kalman, Javaka Steptoe and Hervé Tullet; the Young Readers Stage will feature panel discussions like “Unforgettable Characters,” “Growing Pains” and “Reading Without Walls” (on diversity in books). The event also offers a live-drawing competition among artists (“Illustrator Smackdown!”), as well as workshops on subjects as varied as making origami, writing rap and becoming an activist (even if you’re only 4 or 5). High school readers will get their turn on Sunday, when the main Brooklyn Book Festival provides young-adult programs.
brooklynbookfestival.org/childrens-day

CEREALS at the Flea Theater (Sept. 16-24 and Nov. 11-19). Cereal can sometimes be bland, but that won’t be the case at the Flea, where its resident company, the Bats, is inviting children 5 and older to take their grains with small but flavorful helpings of theater. To create this series of five 10-minute plays — four will be the menu at each performance — the Flea asked up-and-coming writers to adapt intriguing folk tales from around the world. The results, playing weekends at 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. and served with a mini-box of cereal for each child, include stories from New Orleans, Hong Kong, Russia and Syria, along with an adaptation of work by the Italian author Italo Calvino.
212-226-0051, theflea.org

KIDS ’N COMEDY: ‘THE BACK TO SCHOOL/SUMMER’S OVER SHOW’ at Gotham Comedy Club (Sept. 17, 1 p.m.). Facing the challenges of a new school year can require a sense of humor — and the tween and teenage stand-up comics this organization presents know just what’s funny about the whole deal. This 90-minute season opener, geared to audiences 9 and older, features the young comedians tackling subjects like schedule mix-ups, strange teachers and summer memories. Obscenity and kindergarten-style jokes are strictly banned; sophisticated wit is strongly encouraged. Reservations are required, and this Manhattan club offers a menu for children under 12.
212-877-6115, kidsncomedy.com

LADYBUG DAY at Wave Hill (Sept. 16-17, 10 a.m.). Ladybugs seem to enjoy the distinction of being insects that no one minds. And with good reason: They eat a number of environmentally destructive pests, including aphids. At this celebration at Wave Hill, the Bronx public garden, children can join a family art project (until 1 p.m.) to make colorful ladybug backpacks and then wear them for a spot count and a slow-beetle parade. On Sunday only, from 1 to 3 p.m., the educator Kerrilee Hunter, from the Hudson Highlands Nature Museum, will present a Ladybug Meet-and-Greet, in which eager young entomologists can learn more about the insects and observe some live ones close-up.
718-549-3200, wavehill.org

‘POLKADOTS: THE COOL KIDS MUSICAL’ at the Linda Gross Theater (Sept. 16-Oct. 8). What would it be like to be a Polka Dot person in a town designed for Squares? According to this new show, conceived by Douglas Lyons and written by Mr. Lyons, Greg Borowsky and Melvin Tunstall III, it would resemble the experience of a black student trying to integrate an all-white school. A kind of nonhistorical history lesson for children 5 and older, “Polkadots,” playing weekends at 10:30 a.m., draws inspiration from the Little Rock Nine, the first black students to enroll at Little Rock Central High School in 1957. In this production, though, presented by Atlantic for Kids, the children’s division of the Atlantic Theater Company, Lily Polkadot is just 8 and all alone as she tries to navigate an environment of segregated water fountains and continual bullying.
866-811-4111, atlantictheater.org

‘A ROSH HASHANA RESTORATION’ at the Museum at Eldridge Street (Sept. 17, 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.). Rosh Hashana is the Jewish New Year, but this Lower East Side event celebrates some old years, too. The program also honors the 130th anniversary of the Eldridge Street Synagogue, the museum’s site, where many Jewish immigrants worshiped, and the 10-year anniversary of the completion of the synagogue’s two-decade-long restoration. Children will go on an architectural scavenger hunt, make holiday-themed art projects, investigate a photography show on the building’s renewal and try some art-restoration techniques themselves. Online reservations are required.
212-219-0302, eldridgestreet.org/events

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