Vol 10 # 3 December 15, 2025 | | Santa & Elf by Omathi, PAES Kindergartener | |  | |
Friends of PAL
At our meeting in January, we will host Coffee with a Cop, our Area Captain, Aaron Smith. Tuesday, January 27,
6 – 7 pm. No agendas or speeches; just a chance to ask questions, voice concerns, and get to know the officers in our neighborhood. Cookies, tea, and hot cocoa will be served.
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We are going forward: Capital Campaign Committee is created!
As many HOOT readers know, plans to build a new Piedmont Ave Library at 86 Echo Ave were upset when construction funding couldn’t be guaranteed by November 2024 (see https://www.friendsofpal.org/campaign/). We have an exciting update. A Friends of Piedmont Ave Library-Capital Campaign Committee (Friends of PAL-CCC) has been formed to raise money from private sources (individuals, foundations, corporations) to build a more spacious, permanent PAL
| | Joanna Smith and Judith Stone are interim co-chairs of the nascent committee and they are actively recruiting additional members. Interested or know someone who might be? Please contact Joanna (treasurer@friendsofpal.com) or Judith at (stoneju1954@gmail.com). Stay tuned for the Friends of PAL-CCC recruitment launch event in early 2026! | | Our District 1 City Councilmember, Zac Unger, and Joanna Smith are optimistic about our library's future. | | |
From Sabah Abdulla, Branch Manager & Nathan Page,
Children's Librarian
Programs - For more information about each event go to the OPL website.
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Ongoing -
Toddler Storytime, every Tuesday,
10:15 - 10:30 am
Songs and stories for ages 18 months to 3 years. Stay and Play after Storytime with fun toys through 11:15 am.
Knitting & Crochet Circle, every 2nd & 4th Monday, 11 am – 1 pm
Join us for an early afternoon of knitting and good company. Whether you're a seasoned pro or just starting, everyone is welcome!
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Teen Pop Up Crafts, Tuesday, every 2nd and 4th Tuesday, 3:30 – 4:30 pm
Teens, come to hang out and get creative with the library staff. Supplies provided. Just bring yourself and creativity.
Plot Twists & Page Turners: A Piedmont Ave. Branch Book Club, every 2nd Tuesday, 6 – 7:15 pm
Come together with your fellow book lovers and discover your next literary adventure at our monthly Book Club. Join to share your current reads or just hang out and chat about books.
MOCHA at the Library!, Saturday 12/20, 11 am – 12:30 pm
Join us for monthly art workshops for children and families led by teachers from the Museum of Children's Art (MOCHA). For ages 5-15 and caregivers.
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Winter Lights for the Solstice, Wednesday, December 24, 11 am – 12 pm
The Winter Solstice is the perfect time of year to celebrate light. Join us in making a paper lantern to share a little light with others.
Hemming & Mending Clothes By Hand, Monday, January 12, 1:15 pm - 3:15 pm
Learn how to mend your clothes with artist Bea Byrne! We'll cover shortening pants, mending holes, and replacing lost buttons. Practice garments will be provided but you are also welcome to bring your own clothes for advice on how to mend them. Supplies are limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis.
Gardening Workshop: Seed Starting, Saturday, January 24, 2 – 3 pm
In this session, a UC Master Gardener Instructor will cover essential timing and techniques for spring vegetable seed starting, including which seeds thrive in our climate, the equipment needed for transplanting, direct seeding tips, and how to protect seedlings through the winter.
| | We asked our wonderful Librarians, Sabah & Nathan for books that they recommended as gifts. Here they are! | | |
The Friends of PAL Book Bag
Better than wrapping paper, holds all your presents, sturdy, attractive, and supports our library. It’s at the library for a $10 donation!
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The Avid Reader by Louis Segal
I’ve been an avid reader since I could read. In high school I used to cut school to read in the Berkeley Public Library. I’m writing this column to share some of the books I love. I hope, perhaps, you might grow to love a few of them.
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The Antidote: A Novel by Karen Russell
My favorite books as a boy were Ernest Thompson Seaton’s Wild Animals I Have Known, Rudyard Kipling’s Just So Stories, Jack London’s White Fang and The Call of the Wild, and a wonderfully illustrated book on Greek Mythology that my second-grade teacher Miss Brown said was not appropriate for a 7-year old. I was thrilled by the tales and stories. Little did I know that the writers, though talented, sailed the waters of imperial propaganda and white supremacy.
It was only in the 7th grade that I began to read John Steinbeck. Three novels thrilled me in a different way: Of Mice and Men, In Dubious Battle, and The Grapes of Wrath. These were stories of men and women, bent by hard times in the Dust Bowl, and the Great Depression. Unemployed, beleaguered, half-broken, homeless but also noble. These were my mother’s people. Her stories of childhood were of hunger, poverty, domestic violence and the stench of failure. My father left a privileged life and helped the Horuchis who were sent to concentrations camps in the high deserts of California. He learned of the lives of Oakies when he worked in Visalia for the State Relief Administration. In the Grapes of Wrath, Steinbeck imbued the Joads and Preacher Casey with dignity, perseverance, and the spirit of rebellion. Steinbeck loved the land and the intertwined chapters of the land and of the people created a great American novel. The last chapter shook my soul.
This year I read Russell’s The Antidote. It also deals with the Dust Bowl refugees and the Great Depression. It, too, is a magnificent book and a companion piece to Steinbeck’s classic. Unlike Steinbeck’s book which is New Deal Realism, Russell’s book is Magic Surrealism with prairie witches, “schools’ for unwed mothers, a kick-ass girls basketball team, sin-eaters, a mysterious scarecrow, a brutal sheriff, a cowardly deputy, a New Deal documentarian with a magic camera, a prosperous wheat farm in the midst of a drought, and rampant amnesia. In the end, in a ‘Land Lost Acknowledgment’ penned by James Riding In and Russell starts with this: “The Antidote uses fantastical conceits to illuminate the holes in peoples private and collective memories down generation to generation and the myths that have been used by the U.S. government and White settlers to justify crimes against [Native Americans] and the theft of Native lands.”
Two American writers separated by a century wrote wondrous tales of the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression, full of hurt, hungry, rage and displaced humans who have luminoud dignity. They dare to struggle despite all odds; both love the land and those who work it. Russell with more wit and fantasy, Steinbeck with more complex portraits and polished artistry. Both are deeply immersed in the same era’s history but see it in very different Zeitgeists. I salute them both for their craft as they create hard hitting tales for hard hit folks and for two wonderful books that bookend a vanishing time and place.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZktqMdBxc4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jOOtXdnJ_U
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Our library is open 6 days a week
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Sunday Closed
Monday: 10 am - 5:30 pm
Tuesday: 10 am - 8 pm
Wednesday: 10 am - 8 pm
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Thursday: 10 am - 5:30 pm
Friday: 12 pm - 5:30 pm
Saturday: 10 am - 5:30 pm
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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
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