In January, as a new member of the Board, I became chair of the chapter’s Outreach Committee. I hope to use the committee to support activities and events occurring in communities across the chapter that promote reading and writing. I’ve been keeping a look out for such activities and events and intend to bring them to the attention of the Board and the membership from time to time.
The Books at Home Program, based in Trenton, N.J., is the first such project.
“The Books at Home Program provides free books to Trenton kids. Studies show that when kids have more books in their home, they do better in school—no matter how much they are struggling.”
So Classics Books, a used and rare book store in Trenton, accepts donations of used books. They give you a store credit for the donation. And then they do something really great. They ask you to donate the store credit back to the store and they use the store credit to enable inner-city Trenton youth to “shop” for free books at the book store. If my math is correct, they’ve donated approximately $36,000 worth of books to Trenton youth in the last 6 years.
If you’re like me (and I know you are) your home overflows with books. For the next month, I’m asking you to donate some of those used books to the Books at Home Program.
You can bring books to our April meeting and I will arrange to get them to Classics Books in Trenton. You can drop them off yourself at Classics Books (4 W. Lafayette Street, Trenton, N.J.), but check first to make sure the store is open. Classics Books is a small store, open limited hours. You can message me at the committee email address, and it may be possible to arrange another drop-off location.
But as I say, it is a small store open limited hours. I was going to Trenton one day last week, so I figured it would be a good day to drop off books. I had 60 books in three boxes in the back of my car. I got to the book store at noon. It was closed. I later learned that the woman who was supposed to staff the small book store from noon – 2:00 had walking pneumonia. But I didn’t know that when I arrived.
I waited. And waited. It was starting to feel like a wasted trip. And then I met Terrell.
Terrell is a teenager – I would guess 14 or 15 years old – an African-American youngster who recently moved to Trenton. He had an early release day from school. What did Terrell do with his free afternoon? He took the bus to Classics Books. Like me, he stood on the sidewalk, waiting to see if the store would open. We started talking. Terrell loves books – mostly comics, he told me, and fantasy. He stood on the sidewalk peering into the storefront window, hoping they might have a good manga collection. We waited. We chatted. The book store remained closed.
I had three boxes of used books in my car. I had mysteries, of course, but I had a lot more than just mysteries. I had everything from Sophocles to Dr. Ruth. But I didn’t have comics. And I didn’t have fantasy. Then I remembered something. I dug through the boxes for my copy of the graphic novel edition of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.
I offered it to Terrell. He gratefully accepted my gift. We continued to chat. Terrell waited on the sidewalk for 40 minutes before giving in to reality. “I’ve got to catch my bus,” he explained.
I went back into my car, and came out with one more book. “It’s not the kind of book you normally read,” I explained. “You probably won’t like it.”
“I’m open-minded about what I read,” Terrell assured me.
I handed him one of my books. Not my new book, not Death and White Diamonds. He’s got plenty of time later to find out how deeply disturbed I am. I gave him a copy of A Minor Case of Murder, from the Cassie O’Malley series. “When you tell your family about your visit to the bookstore,” I said, “you can tell them you met an author.”
So Terrell went home with two books. And me, I went home with something a whole lot more valuable than two books. I went home with the memory of Terrell, on his early-release day, standing on the sidewalk for forty minutes, hoping that the book store would open.
Thank you, Terrell.
I’ll be going back this week-end and plan to make several visits during the month of April to deliver donated books. I hope you’ll join me in supporting the Books at Home Program.
—Jeff Markowitz
Jeff Markowitz is the author of the darkly comic thriller, Death and White Diamonds, as well as three books in the Cassie O’Malley Mystery Series.