Banned Bookmobile - Rebellious nerds unite!

Hi. This is Aileen. If you are like me, the bookmobile holds a special place in your heart. The bookmobile represents one of the more positive aspects of my childhood - my weekly friend and escape. Normally, our neighborhood bookmobile pulled up on Wednesdays and idled for a few hours on the outer edge of the Kroger parking lot in Antioch, TN. My folks would drop me off, if it was a grocery day, or I would walk. Usually, it was completely, empty. I had it all to myself - a clubhouse of one - and I loved it. I'd like to dust off this memory and bring this same sense of specialness and joy to the community in the form of a banned bookmobile. In the space of a year, June 2021-June 2022, over 1,600 titles were banned from school systems across the U.S. Bans occurred in 138 school districts in 32 states. These districts represent 5,049 schools with a combined enrollment of nearly 4 million students. The majority of book bans underway are not organic expressions of citizen concern. They are the methodical work of a growing number of oppressive, advocacy organizations that have made demanding censorship of certain books and ideas in schools part of their mission - books by authors of color, by LGBTQ+ authors, by women. Books about racism, sexuality, gender, history. I'd like to push back against this flagrant intolerance and bigotry by bringing a little joy into these bleak festivities and I need your help.

I found a retired bookmobile and would like to buy it. It’s not the one in the picture (swoon); it’s a serviceable, full-size bus, circa 1982. On the conservative side - the cost to buy the bus, make minor repairs, spiffy it up with signage/paint and fully stock it with the goodness we call books, would take a little over $15,000. As a ridiculously large "Little Free Contentious Library," the bus would primarily live and play in Georgia but I have plans to do events all over the Deep South, TX and Nashville if they'll have me. Events could be as simple as setting up in a friendly parking lot to give away books or include coproductions featuring music and/or an open-mic story hour featuring the reader's favorite banned book.

I've never run a gofundme campaign before, so I feel a little conspicuous about it. Hang in there with me and know I have the best of intentions with this.

I appreciate my community and everything, we have done together to make things just a little more tolerable or to shine, even the smallest light, when things get a little too abstruse and mean. I want to kick it up a notch and meet the absurdity, head on.

All the bees,

Aileen

For more info about the organizer, visit:

@aileenloyartist

@littlefreecontentiouslibrary