excited and grateful for four new zines recently donated to the zine mobile — now available for checkout! — thanks to the zine-makers who made and sent them!
* a thousand times yes: reflections on yoko ono, by Kate Angell
* Adam Gnade’s Do It Yourself Guide to Fighting the Big Motherfuckin Sad
* 5iren5 and Death in a Rifle Garden, poetry zines by John Vincent Greco
I just found a few more photos I’d taken of the Oscar Grant/Occupy Oakland Library tent — these are from a few weeks ago, before it was moved to the periphery of the plaza. After it was moved, the camp was raided for the second time by police. Fortunately micro branches were already being set up before the second raid — Rock, Paper, Scissors and Brown Couch Cafe each have a selection of books that were donated to the Occupy/Oscar Grant Library; more to come!
I already posted these last week, but in the interest of keeping them all together…
Yesterday was the zine mobile’s first youth-centered event — I parked outside the downtown Oakland Public Library and opened the zine mobile for reading room/library hours… inside we set up a table for zine-making. I brought two typewriters and the library had lots of awesome stamps and kids’ books bound for the recycling bin for clip art.
I feel I should confess that I was really nervous; the age group I tend to feel most comfortable around is at the other end of the age spectrum! But after some reassurance from lovely librarian Amy Martin (who set the whole thing up; thank you Amy!!!!!) and spending a few minutes with the kiddos, my anxiety vanished and I didn’t want the day to end, it was so fun and inspiring…
Some pix of what was created:
One little guy was so excited about the typewriter and asked if he could work on his novel and movie script!!
And thanks to dear friend and OPL teen librarian Amy Sonnie for bringing OPL’s teen zine collection for the afternoon!
Oakland Public Library's teen zine collection
Yay kids!!!! The zine mobile is (more) ready for you : )
This week I had the pleasure of meeting a few of the incredible people behind Green Branch Library, an emerging Oakland-based resource library for children and youth, their families, and educators. Green Branch was founded in 2008 by Shari Leskowitz, who wanted to connect her lifelong love of books with her passion for inspiring children to make positive social change in their communities. Since 2008, Shari’s been building an organizational infrastructure and collecting donated books while searching for a physical space to house the library. For now, the collection of books lives in her apartment…
some of the books that have been donated!
If you live in the Bay — or even if you don’t — please consider supporting this awesome project–look HERE for the many ways you can do so!
Also, I was THRILLED to be the library’s first check-out — here’s what I’m borrowing : )
