The Rolling Library's Book Club & Abolition Book Fair
Hi pals!
For the past few weeks, The Rolling Library has been keeping busy! We had an adorable children’s storytime afternoon at the Jackson Heights open streets; held pop-up book fairs at Astoria Heights Playground, Astoria’s 31st Ave. open streets, and Astoria Park; and we’ve been handing out free books at Astoria, Ravenswood, and Queensbridge Houses alongside the Astoria Mutual Aid Network. We’ve been receiving and sorting tons of donations from generous community members, so much so that we’re already at capacity again! We’d like to shoutout Thrift Books, one of our favorite places to buy used books for our own personal collections, who provided us with a gift card that will allow us to help fill some of the gaps in our collections (such as Spanish-language books and books by Indigenous authors). And a shoutout to Alphabet Legends who graciously donated some of their children’s books for our upcoming book fairs.
We’re planning on doing more pop-ups in the future—while keeping an eye on the weather and Covid cases—and usually announce them the morning of on our Instagram so definitely follow us!
Updates
Book Club! Our intern Taylor (learn more about them here) is heading up The Rolling Library’s book club:
Do you love to read but never know what to read next? Do you love fiction, but find books for adults to be a little...boring? You should join our Young Adult book club! This club is open to anyone of any age, not just young adults/teens. Membership will always be free and if you can't source the book yourself we will work to get you a copy. Click here to sign up!
Upcoming Events
We’re having a huge book fair this weekend in Prospect Park! On Sunday, November 1st from 12-4pm, The Rolling Library will be at the Prospect Park Parade Grounds for the “Abolition Is A Presence” book fair alongside a few other great groups: Abolition Library Commons, Flatbush Commons, Library of Study, and Transform America.
We’re really excited about this event! We’ll not only have tons of free books and zines (many of which will focus on policing, mass incarceration, abolition, etc.) but we'll also have a poetry reading and an abolition read-in where you can learn more about abolition and how to make our communities safer. The Rolling Library was founded on the idea that literacy and education should be accessible to all, and we believe that our schools and our students deserve better funding and better conditions—always, but especially during a pandemic. The Rolling Library sides with abolitionists; we want to defund the police and instead invest that money into education, housing, healthcare, and other public programs. We hope you’ll join us to learn more.
In addition to having hundreds of free books of all genres, we will be collecting donations: specifically books by BIPOC authors and books in languages other than English. We’ll divide these up between our groups and use them to replenish our mutual aid book projects. Unfortunately, we currently can’t accept books that don’t fit that description.
- Pilot & Liah