Vol 8 # 12  September 15, 2024

Events at our Library

From Sabah Abdulla, Branch Manager and Nathan Page, Children’s Librarian

Cool Season Garden Workshop!

Saturday, October 5, 2 – 3 pm

Join us for an informative gardening workshop with Janet Margolis from the UC Master Gardener Program. You'll learn about essential topics like the first fall frost, the basic life cycle of plants, site selection, soil preparation, proper watering techniques, and the best cool weather planting choices. Perfect for beginners and seasoned gardeners alike, this workshop will help you cultivate a thriving garden in any season!

Halloween Crafts

Saturday, October 19, 10 - 11 am

Our next kids craft event is a Halloween-themed craft where kids can make puffy ghosts and paper collage witches. It's going to be a blast!

Sip & Remember - Oaxacan Hot Chocolate and Ancestral Rituals

Saturday, October 26, 11 am - 12:30 pm

You’ll taste a freshly made Oaxacan hot chocolate and dip their staple Pan de Muerto. Learn the history and significance of chocolate in rituals that honor the dead in memory of our ancestors, and enjoy the sabores de Oaxaca.

And our ongoing events !

Toddler Storytime

Tuesdays, 10:15 - 10:30 am

Songs, active rhymes and stories especially for ages 18 months to 3 years. Every Tuesday morning at 10:15am. Stay and play after Storytime with fun age-appropriate toys through 11:15am.

Knitting & Crochet Circle with Susan Segal!

Monday, September 23 & October 7, 11 am - 1 pm

Join us every second and fourth Monday of the month for a delightful early afternoon of yarn, needles, and good company at our Adult Knitting & Crochet Circle.

Teen Pop Up Crafts

Tuesday, September 24 & October 8, 3:30 – 4:30 pm

Come and hang out and get creative with us every 2nd and 4th Tuesday of the month.

Teens ages 13-18 all welcome. Snacks will be provided.

Teen Party

Teens' Welcome Back to the Library Party

Button Making

All the members of The Friends of the Oakland Public Library (FOPL) are excited to publicize information about the Grand Opening of The Bookmark Bookstore in its brand-new location, 933 Broadway! To celebrate, they are hosting a special event on Saturday, September 28,

from 3 PM - 6 PM, and would love for you to join them.

The event will feature:



Speakers: Hear inspiring words from special guests.

Treats: Indulge in delicious goodies as you explore the new space.

Silent Auction: Bid on items from local Oakland organizations.

Children’s Book Giveaway: Bring the little ones to pick out a free book!



This is a wonderful opportunity to support the Friends of the Oakland Public Library (and OPL!) and to connect with fellow book lovers.

Democracies are built on the ability for citizens to educate themselves and make informed decisions. Public libraries are one of the only places where information is readily available to anyone who might seek it out, and they often exist separately from the ever-changing nature of electoral politics. 

Urban Libraries Council www.urbanlibraries.org

As the November 5 election day comes closer, you will see many recommendations that you double check your voter status. You can do at acvote.org/mvp. At that website, you will be asked to log in with your date of birth, your driver license and last 4 of your Social Security Number. When you enter that information, you’ll see your voter registration information. If any of that information is not current, you must re-register. If you have moved, changed your party affiliation, and/or changed your surname, you must re-register which you can do on line at https://registertovote.ca.gov/ or with a form available at our library for you to mail in.



If you are registering or re-registering less than 15 days before an election you will need to complete same-day voter registration  at https://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/voter-registration/same-day-reg and request your ballot in person at your county elections office or polling location.

Wednesday, September 25, 6 pm – 7:45 pm

César E. Chávez Branch, 3301 East 12th Street, Suite 27

Come spend the evening crafting postcards with local guest youth authors!

"With challenges to books at an all-time high, library staff, educators, and authors may be confronted with stressful and disheartening situations. Speaking out for banned and challenged books is vital in the fight against censorship, but we also need to let our trusted librarians, teachers, and the authors of challenged and banned books know that we support them." Inspired by the Dear Banned Author program hosted by ALA each year, this is a letter-writing campaign that encourages young readers to write a postcard to banned or challenged authors during Banned Books Week and beyond to share what their stories mean to them.

At the end of the event we will mail out postcards to affected library staff, educators, and authors across the Bay Area!

This event is hosted in collaboration with Author Alley and includes the following authors in attendance:

Nidhi Chanani, Angela Dalton, Traci Huahn, Mike Jung, Darshana Khiani, Steph Lau, Thien Phan, Lisa Ramee, Dashka Slater, Nadine Takvorian, Maggi Tokuda-Hall, Natasha Tripplett, Rob Liu-Trujillo, Seina Wedlick



Join us in community and indulge in light snacks! ✏️🍪📝☕

Rebecca Clarren’s

The Cost of Free Land: Jews, Lakota, and an American Inheritance [2023]

There are many ways to get lost in a book: escape, amusement, titillation, or the joys of literary aesthetics. In general, that’s not why I read books. I read to learn something new (to meet people I’ve never met or go to places I’ve never been); to learn about love, or the cruelties of history, and to find the spirit of resilience, redemption, repair and resistance in our crazy, cruel and beautiful world. I enjoy many literary forms: histories, memoirs, poems, novels, and non-fiction. Friends and family and book reviews commend me to the books I read. And I take words seriously. I read 50 or 60 pages out of a sense of duty but if I’m not moved or captivated or enlightened, I abandon the book. I’m 75, old enough, no longer in school. and no longer under any obligation to read a book that is hackneyed, full of cliches, or formulaic. In school and as a history teacher, I also read many books that reflect and shaped white supremacy and imperialism. In those confines I could be a savage critic, and I enjoyed being savage. But for The Hoot and The Avid Reader, I read and review books that I love, to lure my fellow readers to enjoy the book under review.

Ergo, RIP Savage Critic!

And this brings me to Clarren’s The Cost of Free Land. It’s an illuminating book about a Jewish woman whose forebears, fled the Russian pograms in the late 19^th century. They ended up homesteading in South Dakota. It turns out their land and much of South Dakota and Northern Plains had been seized from Indians by congressional fiat, legal chicanery, and violence. The land Clarren’s ancestors built their generational wealth upon led to great losses for the Lakota peoples. Clarren is a journalist of the West. She tells histories of her family, loving, funny, caustic but always with a mind of the double tragedy of two peoples. Clarren intertwines the two diasporas, the suffering, the spiritual cost of her own complicity in growing up on Indian land. She is meticulous in her research, honest in expressing a need for repair, seeks spiritual lessons from Rabbis and Indian Elders and tells the tale of our modern world writ small and her search for spiritual atonement, justice, and reconciliation. This tale is a patch of a global story.

Clarren writes with honesty, compassion. She acknowledges and itemizes her family’s gains and the Lakota’s’ losses. Her words are powerful, sincere and resonate with the need to do the right thing. While honoring her elders and their struggles, Clarren also honors the generations of Lakota who were on the losing end of the "Cost of Free Land". In her Acknowledgment, she says, rightly and movingly, “This entire book can be read as a land acknowledgment to the Lakota Nation.” She closes her book with an “Author’s Note” and “Resources for Further Research” and illustrates how her reader can learn more and do more to help right this country’s historical wrongs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shIroMu1O5o

Storytime, every Tuesday, 10:15 - 10:30 am

Families are welcome to stay after Storytime for Stay & Play

9/23 & 10/14 Knitting & Crochet Circle, 11 am - 1 pm

9/24 & 10/8 Teen Pop Up Crafts, 3:30 - 4:30 pm

9/24 Friends of PAL Meeting, 6:30 - 7:30 pm

10/5 Cool Gardening Workshop, 2 - 3 pm

10/19 Halloween Crafts, 10 - 11 am

10/26 Sip & Remember, 11 am -12:30 pm

Friends of the Piedmont Avenue Library Board of Directors 2024

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

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