Jump over to the Improv Everywhere website to view behind-the-scenes photos and other Improv Everywhere videos.  Like what they do?  Consider buying their book Causing a Scene:  Extraordinary Pranks in Ordinary Places with Improv Everywhere. Personally, I think that’s a great end of the year gift for any teacher of performance.

Too many times in my life, I have looked longingly at books I couldn’t afford. I know there are teens who would love to read more if given the opportunity.  Budget cuts are fairly drastic these days in Los Angeles and closing our school libraries is a real possibility.  Those are some of the reasons I love Teen Operation Book Drop.  I learned about it on readergirlz, my favorite website for my own teenage daughter.  Participants can donate books to tribal lands or simply drop books in their own communities.  Paste in a bookplate (link) and leave the book in a public place.  Then join the Post-Op Party on readergirlz blog at 9PM/6PM.

Kelsey and I are going to drop a stack of books at the local high school bus stop.  We’ve noticed in the past that it is mobbed with kids.  I’m pulling her out of school a little early so we can place the books before the students arrive.  There’s an ice cream store, so we’ll snack while watching to see who picks up the books.  We’re gluing in the bookplates and are ready to go.  Join us and drop a book or two sometime during your day tomorrow.

When I read Holocaust literature as a teenager, I was always the strong determined character who beat the odds and survived.  Tragedy provided a background for my heroic actions as Miep or Corrie Ten Boom.  Motherhood changed all that.  Now I’m the mother who can’t stop the Nazis from forcing her child to dig his own grave.  The mother who trods with so many others in peaceful lines to the gas chambers holding my child’s hand.  Or the very worst, I’m Sophie and I have to choose.  Claire won’t read Holocaust literature anymore, it’s too painful.  I completely support her choice.  If a book comes up that deals with the Holocaust, I quietly warn her to skip it.  But as painful as it is for me to read these stories, there is a part of me that believes if millions of people had to live and die this horror, then the least I can do is witness it in some small way.

My greatest honor as an attorney was the opportunity to work with Bet Tzedek to assist Holocaust survivors in obtaining the “Ghetto Pension” [an aside, if you know if a survivor who has not applied for the 2,000 euro Ghetto Pension/ZRBG pension, please contact Bet Tzedek to determine eligibility, today].  From my limited exposure, it appeared that the survivors who were alive today were swept into the Nazi system late in the war when they were teenagers.  Not too young or too old to fall victim to the selections, strong enough to survive until the war ended within the next 12 to 18 months.  And they barely survived.  My teenage visions of bravery were more illusory than I thought.  Elie Wiesel’s Night supports my very unscientific theory.

The Nazis arrived in Wiesel’s village in Transylvania when he was fifteen.  His experience paralleled so many of the stories I heard as an attorney.  First the community is forced into one or two designated areas, ghettos.  Then after a period of time the ghettos are cleared out and the inhabitants sent to concentration camps.  The Wiesel family is shipped via cattle car to Birkenau.  Immediately separated from his  mother and sisters, never to see his mother and youngest sister again, Wiesel took his father’s hand and entered hell.

Weisel was stripped of everything, his clothing, his hair, his dignity, all freedom of choice, his humanity, and most difficult for me to read, his faith.  In many ways his story is similar to many other Holocaust memoirs.  What sets Night apart, what actually glows amidst all of the terror, is Wiesel’s relationship with his father.  They live to keep the other alive.  Even after Wiesel loses all of his faith in God, on the verge of death himself, Wiesel prays that he will have the strength to be a good son.  Night is a Holocaust memoir, but it is also Weisel’s struggle with accepting how he acted as a son.  I read their story and wonder at what a blessing he was to his father, but it’s not my opinion or anyone else’s that Weisel needs to reconcile himself with, it is his own.

The Social Justice Challenge picked religious freedom as the topic to explore this month.  It motivated me to pick up Night which had been sitting on my bookshelf since my last visit to the Museum of Tolerance [another aside, here's my adventure taking teenagers to visit the Museum of Tolerance for Kids Off the Couch] .  What is most impressive about this Challenge is that participants agree to actually do something related to the monthly topic at least three times a year.  My activity for this topic was a lecture I gave at my daughter’s middle school Global Studies class about applying for Holocaust reparations and working with Holocaust survivors.  The students were reading the Maus books in English and had just learned about German war reparations after WWI.  I talked to them about the various Holocaust reparation programs and what the survivors I worked with had to prove to obtain the Ghetto Pension.  When I asked for questions at the end, there was just silence, which made me wonder if I bored them.  Then came an onslaught, all quizzical, not quite understanding one point or another, trying to make sense of a system that is inexplicable.  I answered their questions, and left knowing they, like the rest of us, will have to grapple with a horror  for which there isn’t any justification, no excuse, no sense  and no ability to make whole.

Last year I joined four reading challenges:  the Essay Reading Challenge, the Art History Reading Challenge, the World Citizen Challenge and 100 Shots of Short (a short story challenge).  All taught me a bit about my reading and the subject I explored.  Well, almost all, I never read a single book for the World Citizen Challenge, but I did read the New York Times all year, which should compensate a little bit.  Here are my plans for this year:

• My favorite challenge was the Essay Reading Challenge, so I’ve joined it again.  Because I don’t write reviews of each of the essays, there is a page dedicated to this challenge and I’ll write a wrap up post when I’m done.
• 100 Shots of Short is a perpetual challenge and I’m just over halfway done.  Again, because I don’t review every short story, I have a separate page for 100 Shots of Shorts.
• I love the Art History Reading Challenge and am looking forward to another year of reading about and viewing art.  Last year I committed to the six book level, this year I’m going to strive for nine books.  I’m hoping to combine what I’m reading with what I’m seeing to enrich both.  I will write separate posts about the books I read.
• I signed up for Literary Affair’s Bronte Literary Luncheon series and was excited to see the All About Bronte Challenge.  I was going to read the books anyway, so it feels like a “gimmie” but why pass up a list crossing off opportunity?  This challenge includes books by and about the Brontes plus spin offs from the novels, and the Bronte movies.  I’ll commit to reading three Bronte books, one from each sister, but am hoping to do more.  I’ll write separate posts for my book reviews.
• Even though I utterly failed at the World Citizen Challenge, I’ve decided to join the Social Justice Challenge.  For me, a book can be good on it’s own, but what makes it rise to the pantheon of great in my life is if it contributes to my non-reading life.  That could mean that it is the spring board for a great conversation, or it causes me to see a different viewpoint, or it enriches an experience related to the book.  What attracts me to the Social Justice Challenge is that for at least three months during 2010 the participants commit to doing something.  Each month of the challenge concentrates on a different issue.  This month is religious freedom and next month’s topic is water.  Each month the participants commit to a certain level of activity related to the issue, some months just reading a book, other months reading and doing an activity ,and if needed, a few months can be spent just observing what others are doing.  I’m looking forward to exploring important topics a little bit deeper.  During the months that I’m reading a book, I’ll post about it.

Those are my hopes for 2010, in addition to reading books for book groups, literary events, vacation, spiritual direction, translated books and just because it looks interesting.  Let us know of any interesting challenges you’ve found (even if you didn’t join).

Why are some cities vibrant, visually dynamic, and filled with people on the move and engaged with each other, while other cities lack many of these characteristics? What makes one section of New York a fantastic place to walk around, but other areas of the City appear unfriendly or menacing? Is it a matter of location and infrastructure or is it the result of city planning?

I always thought that city planners went to school and learned their craft attending lectures, and then on the job by sitting at their desks and analyzing plans. Maybe some do. William H. Whyte’s book argues that in order to make good planning decisions, the types of decisions that will positively impact the way in which people live in their cities, planners must go out onto the streets and understand the raw data of how people interact in public spaces. City describes how Whyte’s team studied interactions on city streets and translated this information into discernible patterns. They set up a number of cameras in different locations on a street and recorded the day-to-day interactions. Whyte dissected how people traveled the streets, where they visited, how they interacted with each other and in conjunction with the street’s infrastructure (bus stops, buildings, window ledges, etc.). Whyte drew conclusions about what makes a street work and how cities can improve the population’s experience.  One of my clients, who worked on the development of retail stores for the Walt Disney Company, told me that Disney studied many of these elements when deciding where to locate their stores. He recalled being quizzed by Michael Eisner, the then-CEO of Disney, on very specific details regarding pedestrian patterns and how the street traffic worked before Disney decided on the location of a new stand-alone retail store.

Some of Whyte’s observations are readily apparent. If a city wants more street level pedestrian traffic, make sure that the retail stores have entrances and windows on the street, and not large expanses of blank or solid walls. Other observations are more nuanced, he cautions against diverting pedestrian traffic above street level on to raised walkways or into promenades.

Currently, the downtown area in Los Angeles has been undergoing a renaissance over the last few years. City leaders approved the renovations of buildings on Broadway and Spring Street, in Little Tokyo, and other adjacent areas. The goal is to get the residents out of their cars and walking, shopping, eating and interacting on the streets.  Whyte’s message is that we need to get granular in our understanding. Strings of big box stores with acres of parking do not promote the creation of healthy urban areas, but isolated moments of driving, parking, shopping and more driving. In a time that many people are at least thinking about reducing their individual “carbon footprints,” we need our cities to successfully promote the development and use of interesting city centers where the streets are designed to promote healthy interactions on a pedestrian-based scale.  City shows us that the best way to do that is to analyze what is happening on the street level.

Knowing I was writing this post today, I pondered over what makes a book politically incorrect?  Is there a universal definition that people from various view points could agree upon?  Or is one person’s politically incorrect book someone else’s text?  What do you think?

The books Rob recommends touch on a wide variety of topics, from health care to religion to globalization to politics to foreign affairs, this group isn’t afraid to approach any significant topic.  If only the book group could meet via the Internet and we could all join!  Until then, pick up duplicate copies of a few of these books (Rob will be happy to send them to you), one for you and one for a gift, then meet and discuss the topic while respect the views of everyone at the table:

• The Lives They Left Behind:  Suitcases from a State Hospital Attic,by Darby Penney, Peter Stastny, Lisa Rinzler
• The Family:  The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power,by Jeff Shariet
• The Limits of Power:  The End of American Exceptionalism,by Andrew J. Bacevich
• The Soprano State:  New Jersey’s Culture of Corruption, by Rob Ingle and Sandy McClure
• A Year Without “Made in China”:  One Family’s True Life Adventure in the Global Economy,by Sara Bongiorni
• Bad Money, by Kevin Phillips
• Palestine Peace, by Jimmy Carter
• The Future of Freedom:  Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad,by Fareed Zakaria
• A Letter to America,by David Boren

Remember, buy two books at an independent bookstore, send us the receipts and you’ll be eligible to win an ABA Gift Card!

My name is Shoshannah Feinberg and I am a member of the marketing team at Open Books, a nonprofit social venture that operates an extraordinary used bookstore, provides community programs, and mobilizes passionate volunteers to promote literacy in Chicago and beyond.

Since your blog covers bookstores and Open Books just signed the lease for our used bookstore, we thought you’d be interested in our cause and this upcoming event.

On July 25, Open Books is participating in Blogathon 2009 in hopes of raising $2,500 to support our literacy programs throughout Chicago. During this virtual event, we will update our blog every 30 minutes for 24 hours straight!

Want to get involved? There are three ways to help:

1) Write a post on your own blog to help us raise awareness of the event and get people talking about literacy

2) Give a financial donation by becoming a sponsor

3) Join the Open Books Blogathon team! Blog with us during the 24 hours or help us organize contests, publicity, and other fun!

If you are interested in getting more information about Open Books or Blogathon 2009, feel free to ask! I have documents that can be sent upon request.

Back to me, Claire.  I checked out the website for Open Books and it’s a pretty appealing organization.  Many of their programs are aimed at students in the Chicago area, encouraging them as both readers and writers.  They operate an online bookstore called Better Worlds that offers free shipping and competitive prices, but donates a percentage of their profit from every sale to fund literacy programs. 

They’re also environmentally responsible: they offset their carbon footprint, and, more importantly, they . . .  well, I’ll let them tell it in their own words:

In addition to selling new titles, Better World Books supports book drives and collects used books and textbooks through a network of over 1,600 college campuses and partnerships with nearly 1,000 libraries nationwide. So far, the company has converted more than 25 million donated books into $6.5 million in funding for literacy and education. In the process, we’ve also diverted more than 13,000 tons of books from landfills . . .  we see our job as helping to find new homes for unwanted books. Thus far, we’ve donated nearly one million books to partner programs around the world. Our five primary literacy partners are Books for Africa, Room to Read, Worldfund, the National Center for Family Literacy, and Invisible Children.

As you know if you read our blog regularly, Kim and I are somewhat reluctant to support mail order bookstores because we don’t ever want to lose the local indies that give us so much pleasure, BUT if you’re going to shop online, this seems like the place to do it.

Plus Open Books is opening a real bookstore in the fall!  It’s in Chicago, and I hope once it’s opened someone will visit it and write into us about it.  The same building will house their literacy center, with a computer lab, classrooms and community space.

I can’t imagine a better reason to buy books than to help fund the spread of literacy throughout the world.

Why is local shopping so important?  The AMIBA states that dollars spent in local businesses stick around your community three times longer than those given to a chain.   The American Booksellers Association, via the Indiebound website, gives specific reasons for shopping at your local businesses:

The Economy:  Spend $100 at a local and $68 of that stays in your community. Spend the same $100 at a national chain, and your community only sees $43.  Local businesses create higher-paying jobs for our neighbors. More of your taxes are reinvested in your community–where they belong.

The Environment:  Buying local means less packaging, less transportation, and a smaller carbon footprint.  Shopping in a local business district means less infrastructure, less maintenance, and more money to beautify your community.

The Community:  Local retailers are your friends and neighbors—support them and they’ll support you.  Local businesses donate to charities at more than twice the rate of national chains.  More independents means more choice, more diversity, and a truly unique community.

Of course, here at Bookstore People, we advocate always shopping at your local bookstore, in our opinion the crown jewel of independents.  To celebrate both Independents Week and independent bookstores, my3books is hosting a contest, tell them your favorite independent bookstore and the winning store receives a signed set of the Twilight series.  Show some love to your favorite store and enter it.

Make an effort this week to track how much of your shopping is done at local businesses.  Even better, spend your holiday dollars with an independent business while celebrating the 4th of July.

James Patterson’s ReadKiddoRead.com – James Patterson’s son didn’t enjoy reading, so James spent summers looking for books that his son would enjoy.  Then, being who he is, he started writing books his son would enjoy.  Now he’s sharing all that he’s learned on a website ReadKiddoRead.com.  This is a terrific website, it has lists of great books that kids will love by age.  There are even lesson plans for teachers.  Okay, how many parents out there take solace from the fact that James Patterson’s son didn’t like to read?  While my kids love to read, there are other things that I love that they can’t stand; I look and them and wonder how they could be my child.

readergirlz - I LOVE THIS SITE!  Claire is going to die when I send it to her.  readergirlz is an online community for teen girls that pairs up a YA novel with a community service project each month.  This month the book is Red Glass by Laura Resau.  The book is about illegal immigration and the activity is awareness of Dream Act and possible participation May Day marches.  readergirlz interviews the author (and asks about her favorite bookstore, the most important question) and this month is holding an online chat with Laura Resau. 

Fathers Bridging the Miles, a program of Read to Me International – The goal of Read to Me International is to have every child read to at least ten minutes a day.  Fathers Bridging the Miles is an opportunity for incarcerated men to send their children a book and a tape of them reading it.  The hope, which is frequently achieved, is that fathers will continue to read to their children when they return home and that the process will help the father and child grow closer.

Maricopa County Library District - After customer surveys relayed a desire for the library to be “browser friendly,” the staff redesigned it to look and feel like a bookstore, even dropping the Dewey decimal system.  The neighborhood loves the new feel and “Dewey-less” organization.

Robert Wilder – Robert Wilder said “[l]ike many other teachers and writers, I try to find myriad ways to get good books into other people’s hands. Whether it’s a kindergartner struggling over his first sentence, a high school student trying to find her voice in the wilderness of adolescence, or an intellectually starved friend at a dinner party, books are my gesture toward a better life for anyone willing to turn some pages.”  I couldn’t agree more, best way to improve your life, your mood, your conversation skills – pick up a book!

There are very impressive activities in the world of reading.  But really, next year, I want a bookstore to win.