From Chasing Ray comes news of an appeal for reviewers, bloggers, librarians and others to send their advance reading copies to kids in Louisiana juvenile detention centers. Books2Prisoners has been delivering books to prisoners in the NOLA area for some time, and they have now started to gather books for the juvenile detention centers as well. Whatever they had before Katrina is now, of course, gone.
Colleen at Chasing Ray has an excellent and comprehensive post about the situation for kids (incarcerated and otherwise) in New Orleans, and about the kinds of books that Books2Prisoners would like to receive. Generally, they are looking for books from the middle grade reading level and up, primarily dealing with multi-cultural themes and characters. Naturally, not just ARCs, but also full-grown books are welcome.
Read the whole Books2Prisoners post at Chasing Ray for details, inspiration, and the mailing address for the program.
Update: 02/14 12:25 GMT by B :mdoniel says “So if you want to donate books to this program and don’t have any funds to send them let me know. I’ll pay for the first 5 boxes sent FedEx ground. I’ll fax you a label to tape on the box.”
Not to complain….
Not to complain but are there not better ways to use these review copies. To be truthful many of the review copies I have seen have been noted not for redistribution or other such language that makes it illegal, if not unethical to share with others. Heck I didn’t even read the HP’s when they came in before the release date.
I am of two minds here, certainly people in pre-trial detention are innocent and deserve reading material. New Orleans crime problems are not new, in fact they have been a cesspool for decades. However that said it is a social problem as well as a personal responsibility problem. I grew up in a culture where you didn’t whack your neighbors on a whim, and many in NOLA did not.
Do I want to deny convicted criminals reading material, well no not really. I still hold hope that everyone is redeemable.
So if you want to donate books to this program and don’t have any funds to send them let me know. i’ll pay for the first 5 boxes sent FedEx ground. I’ll fax you a label to tape on the box.
Re:Not to complain….ARC books for NOLA
My service organization has many of these books at middle-high school level that were donated by publishers after a book trade show last Sept. If you still are willing to pay for one box Fed-Ex, please email me at [email protected] and I will send you a fax number.
The books do have the warning about not selling, but there is nothing about giving them away. When we applied to receive the donations, our group specifically stated we would be giving them to various “libraries” like at women’s shelter, our local prison, the hospital….
Thanks.