I am thrilled to announce that to date we received 600 books for the boys in the LA County juvenile justice system. The response to the original Book Fair for Boys post has been huge - far greater than we anticipated - and will make a big difference in a lot of lives. So many books were sent to LA that InsideOut Writers is able to spread them over all three facilities where the boys are held, providing much greater access to the books. It will be easier for them to check them out, easier for them to find the books they want and easier in every possible way for them to read.Think about that - we have made it possible for these boys to have books to read.
According to Eve, the point person at IOW, the most popular books are Harry Potter (some things just don't surprise me anymore), titles about war such as Andrew Mueller's I Wouldn't Start From Here and Jay Kopelman's From Baghdad Withe Love and books on the harsh truth of gang life such as Luis Rodriguez's Always Running. We will be running book reviews in the coming months on many of the books and I can't wait to see what the boys have to say.
For those of you who donated or spread the word, thank you so very much. Expect to hear from IOW in the near future as notes are being written to ever donor. And for future reference, we will be running a book fair in late November to again help this group of teenagers. Six hundred books is certainly a lot but for 2,500 boys it's just the tip of the iceberg. We have started to build a library and intend to continue the work.
8 comments :
Great work, guys! I wish you could take hardcovers too! I'd donate a bunch of my own.
Congrats Colleen! And thats a great idea. If we had some paperbacks of our own that we wanted to donate, would that be possible?
Yes Alyssa - paperbacks are okay. (Hardcovers are not allowed in the US prison system as they can be used as weapons. That is why we did not accept them.)
Please contact Eve specifically to see if your books are ones the boys would like and to get the new mailing address:
eporinchak@aol.com
This is excellent news. Thanks for the update!
Way to go everyone, you put together a fantastic project.
Glad to hear it was so successful! Thanks for doing this.
i am floored! 600 books! that is so awesome. Congrats. I'll be back in November to help out again.
I'm so glad to hear that the book drive went so well. That is fantastic. Here's hoping lives will be transformed by the power of the written word.
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