Vol 9 # 7 April 15, 2025

Friends of PAL

FOPAL Meeting April 22, 6:30 - 7:30 pm at the library

We know that it is difficult for some people to make it in person to our public meetings, so we decided to try an experiment for a few months. We are offering a Zoom option for the next FOPAL meeting, April 22. If you can’t come in person, please click this link and join us via Zoom:  

Treasurer’s report:

We currently have $29,870 in our account. We gratefully acknowledge an undesignated contribution of $50 from one of our supporters and a designated contribution of $250 for our Building Fund. While we are unable to move forward with plans for the former Child Development Center at this point, we are gathering resources to support our efforts to get a future permanent home! 

We also welcome donations that will allow us to support activities and workshops at our Branch that could not be provided with current library funding. 



Would you like to donate? There are several ways. Our preferred method is through Zelle treasurer@friendsofpal.org (a bank-to-bank transfer) where there are no charges to the sender or FOPAL. Or you can mail a check to Friends of PAL, Piedmont Avenue Branch Library, 80 Echo St., Oakland, 94611. Gifts to FOPAL are tax deductible to the extent allowed by law. We will acknowledge all donations promptly! 

Donating a gift to our librarians

We’ve been talking with the staff about things that would make their life easier at the library. We are starting a Wish List in the HOOT of items that you can purchase and donate to the library. Here is their first wish!

TOOLF Expandable Dish Rack, - $21.98 on Amazon. If you’d like to purchase this on behalf of the branch, please email Sabah Abdulla, the branch manager, (SAbdulla@oaklandlibrary.org) first to make sure it hasn’t already been purchased.

 -- Joanna Smith, Treasurer, FOPAL

Teen Pop Up Crafts, every second and fourth Tuesday, 3:30 – 4:30 pm

Come and hang out and get creative with us every second and fourth Tuesday of the month. Teens ages 13 – 18, all welcome. Snacks will be provided.

More Events - - -

Belly Dance Performance with Nicole Maria!, Tuesday, April 22, 5:30 – 6:30 pm

Join us as we celebrate Arab Heritage Month and experience an interactive Arabic-style dance performance with multi-award-winning dancer Nicole Maria! Learn the art of Southwest Asian/North African belly dance ending with a belly dance lesson for all!

Container Gardening, Saturday, April 26, 2 – 3 pm

Learn the art of gardening in containers to maximize space and flexibility. UC Master Gardeners will share tips on selecting containers, choosing organic soil, and optimizing sunlight exposure for thriving plants.

Celebra el día de los niños/El día de los libros (Children's Day/Book Day), Wednesday, April 30, 6 – 7pm

Come celebrate with Mariela's Music Time. An energetic and interactive bilingual performance for infants, toddlers, preschoolers, and their families. Dia is a nationally recognized initiative that emphasizes the importance of literacy for all children from all backgrounds. Free books will be given out.

Plant Swap, Saturday, May 3, 11 – 1pm

Got extra plants, seedlings, or plant cuttings? Bring them to the Piedmont Ave Library and swap them for something new! Join us for a fun, community-friendly plant exchange. All are welcome, bring healthy, labeled plants and swap to add to your collection.

Plot Twists & Page Turners: A Piedmont Branch Book Club, May 13, 6 – 7:15 pm

Do you need to talk to someone about your latest read? Are you in a reading slump and need some tried and true recommendations? Come together with your fellow book lovers and discover your next literary adventure at our monthly Book Club, facilitated and led by Angie McGowan. Everyone is welcome to join to share about their current reads or just to hang out and chat about books in general.

Every 2nd Tuesday of the month, 6 pm

Wednesday Night Art Club: Scrape Painting, Wednesday, May 14,

6 – 7:30 pm

Create beautiful, colorful, abstract art using scrape painting! Drop paint onto paper and drag it into unique designs with a card, scraper, or squeegee (which were invented in Oakland!). This adult program is suitable for all skill levels—beginners welcome! All materials will be provided. Presented by Artist Teacher Jeni Paltiel of Lellobird Illustration and Design.

Our Book Club by Angie McGowan, Moderator and Facilitator

I'm so pleased to be your moderator and facilitator for Plot Twists & Page Turners: A Piedmont Ave. Library Book Club. I've been a reader my whole life, and I'm excited to connect with other bookish people in the community. 

Naturally, the first question I get asked about the book club is, "What's the book you need to read before the next meeting?" Well, our book club is operating under a different format. Instead of all of us reading the same book, I will suggest a genre or topic, and we come together to discuss our pick. I'm calling this discussion "The Rewind." This past meeting, our group shared their literary preferences and their most recent, memorable read. One attendee, inspired by the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, had all of us take the Sorting Hat quiz to see what Hogwarts house we belonged to (Ravenclaw, obviously).

In our inaugural meeting, the group decided on Historical Fiction (my personal favorite) as our genre to read and review during the May 13th meeting. I'm hoping to read Good Dirt by Charmaine Wilkerson (crossing my fingers for a Lucky Day book to show up!). 

After "The Rewind" discussion, the rest of the meeting is dedicated to a free flowing discussion on all things literary culture. Whether it's ideas about how to support our branch library or libraries in general, or what exciting new releases are coming out, all attendees are invited to join in on the conversation. During this past meeting, we talked about when we liked to read, and our favorite genres. Despite it being a month away, I'm already planning out questions or topics for our next meeting. I hope you'll join us at our next gathering at the library, May 13, 6 - 7 pm and every second Tuesday.

Protect Our Libraries

On April 2, the Trump administration placed the staff of the Institute of Museum and Library Services on leave, potentially ending the main source of federal support for the country’s museums and libraries.

Its largest program, Grants to States, delivers almost $160 million annually to state library agencies which covers one-third to one half of their budgets. Cindy Hohl, president of the American Library Association, said the cuts will have a devastating effect. “State libraries are making hard choices about what their communities will have to do without; do the cut library loans that give rural residents more choices, or do they cut summer reading programs for kids? ”



There is more information, including how you can fight these cuts, at the websites of these library advocates - The American Library Association https://www.ala.org and Everylibrary, https://www.everylibraryinstitute.org/

Our Avid Reader is on a leave of absence & the Bookworm is kindly filling in.....

The Book Worm Recommends

"Creation" by Gore Vidal

I just finished Gore Vidal’s "Creation".  It wasn’t as much fun as I hoped.

I was in the mood for a historical novel. Hilary Mantel’s “Wolf Hall” books and Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey-Maturin series are among my favorite fiction these days. They are exciting stories placed in a realistic historical setting. O’Brian’s focus is on fictional characters, but within a convincing historical context. Mantel places everything in the very middle of actual events, vividly imagining everything, with such literary brilliance that it all seems absolutely real.

Gore Vidal has written a number of novels depicting real events. It’s been a very long time since I read “Burr,” “Julian” and “Lincoln” but I remember them as being very enjoyable, colored by Vidal’s caustic wit and his particular view of the political world, but always interesting, with high quality writing. He doesn’t quite hit that mark with "Creation".



It starts with a very clever premise: The main character is the grandson of the founder of Zoroastrianism. He travels much of the known world, visiting both Buddha and Confucius in person. Brilliant. Bounds of plausibility are bent quite a bit, but that’s okay. Buddha and Confucius really were alive roughly at the same time, Zoroaster (aka Zarathustra) a bit earlier. Our protagonist takes us inside the government of the Persian empire under Darius the Great and several of his successors, takes us to Babylon and Greece, then into India, eventually on a long trip to China, finally back to Persia, ending in Athens. The trouble is, it is just too much. Too much to do really well. He introduces us to an endless stream of characters, so many that we rarely have time to care much about them before we’re focusing somewhere else. We go to a wonderful variety of interesting places, but distances and the difficulty of travel in fifth century BCE are so great that we skip over the travel in a few sentences or paragraphs. Hardship and danger are summarized briefly so our hero can almost miraculously find his way to important religious leaders. He wants to talk philosophy. The title of the book is “Creation” after all. Vidal is an erudite man, has done enormous research, so there is a lot to cover as our hero sits down for discussions with some of the most import figures in religious history. Most of the time he sits with them, asks questions, and listens to their replies. Interesting, yes. But too often the portrayal is bland, sometimes even dull. I’m not saying it’s like reading a pamphlet given to you by a robed figure in an airport, but sometimes it’s close to that. 



I lost heart at times, paused for days, sometimes even weeks. But I kept going back. I had to get our hero back to Persia, back to Greece! I had to see how he summed everything up. Finally made it through, and I’m glad I did. Maybe I’m being too hard on Mr. Gore. After all, I started it after re-reading all those action-packed Patrick O’Brian novels, and that’s not what this is. He’s describing a fascinating era of history that I didn’t know enough about. He's wrestling with important moral, ethical, and philosophical questions that deserve our attention. Certainly, any book that looks seriously about principles of government has value in our era. This is not one of Gore Vidal’s best books, but it’s an ambitious work that has a lot to say. I won’t be re-reading it anytime soon. But I’m glad I read it. 

By Peter Sownie, a retired gentleman who has lived in the Bay Area for 56 years, 35 of them working for large banks, while somehow remaining a basically good person. He likes to travel, ride his bicycle, visit libraries and bookstores, and have dinner with friends. When possible.

Friends of the Piedmont Avenue Library Board of Directors 2024

President: Ronile Lahti; Secretary: Arleen Feng; Treasurer: Joanna Smith

The Friends of the Piedmont Avenue Library is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Our tax ID is 84-4203055.

All contributions are tax deductible.

Donate to Friends of PAL