with my hand held out

I've been remiss in not posting this earlier, but life has been a bit busy recently. Our volunteer group, along with UCLA's Graduate Student Association, are doing a book drive for juvenile detention facility where I volunteer and if any of my devoted fans would like to donate a book or two, the kids and I would be ever so grateful. Tonight we had a taker on the Malcolm X autobiography, a Stephen King, a Walter Mosley and oh so many more. One kid booktalked this book, which I was a little surprised about. We often have a difficult time getting kids to read fiction that purports to tell a story about a kid with a hard life, but our reader enjoyed this one. I noticed that the Amazon review thinks that the book's hard luck story is implausible, but our reader mentioned no such thing--sadly, it probably seems completely plausible to him. Anyway, here is the little book drive spiel--sorry that it is kind of long. Thank you in advance!

BEYOND 4 WALLS BOOK DRIVE

Greetings, UCLA Community,

Reading changes lives. We ask you to partner with us to impact and improve
the lives of incarcerated children and teenagers, by purchasing books for
the BEYOND 4 WALLS BOOK DRIVE.

The Barry J. Nidorf Juvenile Detention Facility in Sylmar houses 600+
children and teens. The members of the Nidorf Collective, a group of
students from the UCLA Information Studies graduate program, have been
volunteering at the facility for the past year, bringing books to this
underserved population. The Beyond 4 Walls Book Drive, sponsored by the
GSA Community Service Commission, will further the work to give the gift
of reading to these kids.

How can you contribute? Here are several ways:

1) The best and simplest way is to use this link to select books for the
kids from the “Beyond 4 Walls Wish List” on Amazon.com:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/3GB06L568M0Y3

The books on this list have been requested by the teens at Nidorf and/or
recommended by the library students in the UCLA MLIS program, who have
seen what a difference books and reading make to this population. After
you use the link, please forward this email to others who might also like
to make a fundamental difference in this ongoing literacy program. The
email campaign will run from Friday, May 18th to Friday, June 8th. (Please
note and make use of all the tools Amazon gives you to view the books by
highest priority, by price, in detail, or in summary.)

2) Bring new or used books to our BOOK DRIVE PARTY on Wednesday, June 6th
from 5-9 p.m. at Kerckhoff Art Gallery (Kerckhoff 214). We will serve
food, beer and wine, and celebrate the success of the Beyond 4 Walls Book
Drive. (Paperbacks are preferred.)

3) Finally, if you cannot attend the event but want to make a book
donation, please deliver your new or used books to the GSA office in
Kerckhoff 316.

The GSA Community Service Commission, the members of the Nidorf
Collective, and the kids at Nidorf thank you for giving your time and
energy to community service. Your donation makes a big difference.


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The Barry J. Nidorf Juvenile Detention Facility in Sylmar (north San
Fernando Valley) houses children and teens ages 12 to 17, who are awaiting
adjudication. About 70 percent of the kids rotate in and out quickly
(within 28 days)—either sent home or placed in other facilities—but the
rest are at Nidorf long-term, a more stationary population of about 200
minors who may remain at the facility for up to several years.

The only library at Nidorf is in the on-premises LACOE school. The library
is only accessible to the kids during school hours, and then only if their
teachers bring them in for a class visit. They are not allowed to check
the books out and take them back to their rooms, with the result that they
have nothing to read during the hours they need it the most.

For that reason, the UCLA students of the Nidorf Collective have made it
their priority to collect books from wherever they can—mostly libraries
and schools who donate their discards—and deliver boxes of books to the
living units. Additionally, they have started five bi-weekly book
groups—one each in the Boys’ and Girls’ Special Handling Units (SHUs), two
in the lockdown units, and one in the girls’ school—for which they
constantly need more books, since they take books in, book-talk them and
give them away, also taking requests from the kids for specific titles and
then trying to track those down and acquire them cheap or free.

One restriction is that only paperback books are allowed in the living
units. Hardcover books can go into the school library for more limited use
there. The Nidorf Collective’s hope is to eventually provide a stocked
rolling book cart to each of the 15 living units, and a part- or full-time
librarian to visit all the units and also continue the book groups. But
for now, book drives such as Beyond 4 Walls are their best hope of
bringing books to eager readers in this marginalized population. We hope
you will help.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/3GB06L568M0Y3
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