Super clever way to “market” public services, like the library, whose tangible (and intangible) benefits often go unnoticed. pic.twitter.com/cyQD3Cud4D
— Ames Grawert ?? (@AmesCG) March 29, 2024
A NYC-specific initiative:
Libraries change lives and societies for the better, and we need to protect them with everything we’ve got.
I was thrilled to join @nypl and @jenniferweiner yesterday to say: #NoCutsToLibraries!
Add your voice today: https://t.co/eUTxpC0gLf pic.twitter.com/oWdbVjKLvu
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) March 28, 2024
This is lovely: 'Tall tales but no dessert: the storyteller of Karachi and his ice-cream cart library': in a country where 77% of 10-year-olds are illiterate, a reading scheme in #Pakistan is reaching thousands https://t.co/Z1sIQowka4
— Literary Connections (@literaryconnect) April 10, 2024
From the Guardian (h/t Ozark Hillbilly), “Tall tales but no dessert: the storyteller of Karachi and his ice-cream cart library”:
Pedalling down a narrow alleyway in Karachi’s crowded Lyari Town, Saira Bano slows as she passes a group of children sitting on the ground, listening to a man reading aloud from a book. The eight-year-old gets off her bike, slips off her sandals, and sits on the mat at the back.
She has already heard the story from Mohammad Noman, who is entertaining more than a dozen children with the tale of Noori, an insecure yellow parrot. “I don’t mind listening to it again,” says Saira. “He’s so funny.”
Noman, 23, is spending two weeks in Lyari pedalling an old ice-cream cart through its lanes, stopping to read his stories and leaving behind books for the children to borrow.
He dropped out of school himself as a teenager but has returned to education and is now studying for his high school certificate.
He is also one of two storytellers working part-time for the Kahaani Sawaari (Stories on Wheels) programme, run by GoRead.pk, which is working to improve literacy among underprivileged communities in Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city.
“I become a kid when I am around the children,” says Noman. In the past 18 months, he has visited 30 areas of Lyari, one of the most densely populated and deprived neighbourhoods of Karachi, with more than 660,000 residents, mostly from the marginalised Baloch ethnic group…
Education is free and compulsory in Pakistan yet, according to the UN, it has the world’s second-highest rate of children absent from school, at 44% of five to 16-year-olds. And 77% of 10-year-olds are unable to understand simple text, according to the World Bank.
Books and uniforms can be prohibitively expensive in Pakistan. Saira dropped out of school a year ago when her father, who worked in a toy shop, lost his job as Pakistan’s economy was hit by rocketing food and fuel prices…
It is not just children in the Lyari audience. “I have been watching this young man come in his ice-cream cart since last week,” says Rashida Ashraf, a local resident in her 60s. “He plays music, and soon the kids trickle in. There’s no ice-cream though.
“It’s nice,” she says. “It will open their minds.”
mrmoshpotato
Baseball bats to Rethuglican crotches? Cockknockers?
NotMax
There’s libraries and then there’s libraries.
:)
sab
Best thing we ever did for my stepdaughter and her child was finance their rent to an apartment one short block from a good public library.
eclare
I hate that we rebuilt the library closest to me here. It now has a huge atrium and the floors open to the atrium, so there are huge towering ledges, and I don’t like ledges. I used to browse all the time in the old library, now I just reserve books to pick up at the check-out on the first floor.
sab
@eclare: Yikes. That sounds awful. Same as my objection to big hospital atriums. Old people with walkers trundling across vast spaces.
Andsomehow this is considered to be a good thing.sab
@sab: I am jealous. I want her apartment, but landlord only rents to families with autistic kids.
My ScotsIrish mom would call him a good egg. In Yiddish I think that would be a mensch.
ETA A good egg was the highest compliment my mom could give.
Mousebumples
Also a bit fan of public libraries. I’ve seen something like that “you’ve saved all the money” message on our checkout receipts, too.
My kids love going to play with toy bins (trains, puppets, building blocks, etc.), and I love getting a bunch of new books for bedtime storytime.
My 4 yo is learning her letters (can’t read quite yet), and she’s still falling asleep with books in her bed. 😅 I used to do that! Well, that and sneaking a flashlight under the covers to keep reading after “Lights Out.” When I was a bit older, though.
OzarkHillbilly
Over the years I’ve gotten to know and become friends with a few librarians. They are all very interesting people.
@Mousebumples: I read to my boys in bed every night and then they got to “read” books for another half hour. They are both voracious readers. I wonder how that happened?
Baud
I should start reading.
Mousebumples
@OzarkHillbilly: ❤️
Part of encouraging a love of books and reading is finding fun books that they love. We probably have “too many” books. But I am so glad my kids love reading and snuggling before bed.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: If you got this far without reading, why you botha?
My wife says the same thing about me. My reply is always the same: “That is not possible.”
Tho I do have a few books I will never read again and should give away, I will just replace them with others.
Mousebumples
@Baud: If you’re running for President, maybe it could become your campaign event.
Baud 20XX! Storytelling at the polls!
Mousebumples
@OzarkHillbilly: yeah, I figure I’ll end up either giving away baby books (except for favorites) when my kiddos outgrow them. Give to their school? To the library? To neighbors?… TBD…
Jeffg166
I send the Philadelphia library money every year. I have no idea how many thousands I save a year using it.
eclare
@Mousebumples:
I also did the flashlight under the covers thing!
Mousebumples
@eclare: book nerds unite!
I used to think I was super sneaky to get out a flashlight to read.
In retrospect, I didn’t buy the flashlight or replace the batteries. Thanks mom and dad (who will probably never read this, haha)
Manyakitty
@eclare: same thing here. I grew up in the nooks and crannies of that place and now they’re all gone.
mrmoshpotato
@eclare: I am confuse-id. Are there no walls before the open atrium area?
Baud
@mrmoshpotato:
Not even in the bathrooms, man. It’s awful.
EarthWindFire
My 9-year-old nephew has taken this to a whole new level. He read Harry Potter and decided he was going to sleep under the stairs like Harry. He’s had his under stairs bedroom for a few months now and openly uses his flashlight to read. We’re very proud of him.
Mousebumples
@EarthWindFire: d’awwww!
Dorothy A. Winsor
@OzarkHillbilly: Your wife is wrong. You are right.
I live next door to the library. It was a big plus for this building when we were looking.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@EarthWindFire: This kid is a star.
Betty
Washington Post headline this morning is about red state attacks on libraries. I never thought I would live see this insanity in the US.
Glidwrith
My son found it difficult to read. I started taking both he and his younger sister to the library. They would play with the toys while I browsed but they started getting curious what mom was doing. I’d tell them to look over the books in their section and pick out anything that looked interesting. It took an entire summer but my son found books that were worth the effort. One of my proudest moments.
Daughter, on the other hand, demanded that I teach her to read at the age of two.
ETA: and just to be clear, she was reading within a month.
WaterGirl
@Mousebumples: My mom gave our whole collection of Nancy Drew books to the library. Not sure I ever forgave her for that!
Mousebumples
@WaterGirl: awww! But think of all the kids that learned to love them!
Captain C
That article about the storyteller of Karachi warms my librarian heart.
sab
@Mousebumples: I love your point that you did not buy the flashlight or the batteries. Both my husband and I were flashlight under the cover readers.
Time for me to give my granddaughter a flashlight.
sab
@WaterGirl: Modern children should have actual books so that their children can later read them. I read my mom’s entire Oz collection.
WaterGirl
@sab: Yep.
sab
@sab: I saw from Lawyers Guns and Money blog’s grave tour that L Frank Baum was married to a famous and dedicated suffragette. That explains why the Oz books were so full of tough little ladies. Dorothy, and the witches and all the princesses who were actual princesses not girls married to princes.
Mousebumples
@sab: my daughter has a bunch, but she currently is afraid of falling asleep in the dark, so her lights are on. I expect the flashlight under the covers will be more when she can actually read vs telling the stories to herself based on pictures.