Guys Lit Wire Puts On A Book Fair For A High School in Washington, D.C. With More Students Than Books!

The still image above is from a video school librarian Melissa Jackson made of her library at Ballou Senior High School in Washington D.C. That section above is their fiction section. Seriously, I have more books that that on my shelves at home! They had 1,150 books in total on the shelves when they made this video, and over 1,200 students.

Well, we can all help. Guys Lit Wire is putting on a book fair to get specific books the students and librarians want into the Ballou Senior High School library.

Guys Lit Wire is a wonderful blog and community that I'm proud to be part of, with the goal of bringing "the attention of good books to [Teen] guys who might have missed them." Colleen Mondor (who's been the volunteer engine putting this whole thing together!) is much more eloquent than I about this annual book fair for a needy school library, so I urge you to head on over and read all about it. And then go to Powells and buy the Teens at Ballou Senior High School a good book. Maybe buy them two.

And hey, consider buying them one (or more) of the great GLBTQ Teen titles included on their wish list of 900 books.

Scrolling through just the first hundred, I already saw:

Dramarama by E. Lockhart

Someday This Pain Will Be Useful To You by Peter Cameron

My Most Excellent Year: A Novel of Love, Mary Poppins, and Fenway Park by Steve Kluger

Vintage: A Ghost Story by Steve Berman

The Necessary Hunger by Nina Revoyr

After Tupac & D Foster by Jacqueline Woodson

And you can always include YOUR favorite GLBTQ Teen title as an extra donation!

So be part of the Guys Lit Wire book fair to fill the shelves at Ballou Senior High School library. It's a really concrete way to make a difference for the better.

Now I just have to figure out what books I'm going to buy them...

Thanks!

Namaste,
Lee

Two Great Things To Celebrate The Finale Of Library Appreciation Week: Operation Teen Book Drop and Emily Lloyd's "Shelf Check" Comic Blog

Librarians ROCK! That's established.

And Libraries are critical. We agree.

But for a library to really function, it needs to have some books, right?

Well there are quite a few libraries without the resources and materials to give their kids that very basic thing - some good books to read. So, for the third year in a row, like the superheroes they are, the writers and readers and members of the children's literature community (the "kidlitosphere") - led by the incredible Readergirlz, the awesome GuysLitWire gang, the Young Adult Library Services Association of the ALA, and this year, the Native American Children's Book Club, If I Can Read, I Can Do Anything - have jumped in to help with

(daa-da-da-AHHHH!)

OPERATION TEEN BOOK DROP!

This week, 10,000 new books, donated by publishers, will be "dropped" to libraries to support teens on Native Reservations and Tribal Lands.

More than 100 YA authors are going to leave new YA books in public places, with a bookplate from Operation TBD.

And individuals (like you and me) are buying books, one at a time, at the wishlists at Powell's bookstore to stock the libraries of two specific schools, Ojo Encino Day School (located twenty-five miles west of Cuba, New Mexico on the Navajo Nation) and Alchesay High School (located in Whiteriver, Arizona in the heart of the White Mountain Apache Reservation.)

Book by book, lives will start to change for the better.

I couldn't be prouder of our kidlit community.

Wanna feel great about it, too? Go to the wishlists (here's how) and buy one of these libraries a book. Go on - you'll feel awesome about it, and about yourself, too.

Now that you feel all altruistic, here's something more to celebrate:

Emily Lloyd is a poet and blogger who runs an insightful, funny and thought-provoking comic strip with a lesbian librarian main character on her blog, Shelf Check. She was kind enough to let me share one of her comics here with you.

Enjoy!

By poesygalore | View this Toon at ToonDoo | Create your own Toon

Hope, Part 1: Teenage Boys In Jail. What gives them some hope for their future? Books.

Check out this amazing project to help out Teen Boys who are in LA juvenile detention.

Guys Lit Wire and Inside Out Writers are teaming up for a two week bookfair to get some hope (in the form of books) into the hands of these kids.

Go read about it. And maybe buy them a book.

Some of these kids are gay. Bisexual. Transgender. Questioning. Heck, some of them are even straight!

A single book could change their lives.

Like Colleen says, Let's change the world!