Big Announcement: The Apparating Library and Resist Readathon!

Guess what, blogaroos!? I’m doing another thing! So. Have you ever heard of the Harry Potter Alliance!? If not, you MUST go check it out, because the HPA is seriously the coolest nonprofit organization around. In short, the HPA encourages positive real-world change through fandom. For example, you know how the Order of the Phoenix fights for justice in the Potterverse? Well, the HPA fights for justice IRL and welcomes people from all fandoms to become fan activists! For instance, the Protego campaign fights for trans rights, and the Neville Fights Back campaign fights against, well, lots of stupid stuff happening in the White House right now.

AND they have a BOOK CLUB!

And AND I’m the new Co-Manager of that book club!

And and AND we’re having an AWESOME readathon!

Allow me to explain.

The campaign

Each year, the Harry Potter Alliance runs a literacy campaign called Accio Books. Last year they stocked a library in Uganda! This year we’re trying to raise money for Words Alive, a literacy organization in southern California! And if you donate to the campaign, you could become a lifetime member of the Friends of the Apparating Library Book Club!

Why is it called the Friends of the Apparating Library Book Club? The idea is to Apparate books to people around the world who need them! Also, when the HPA attends conventions like NerdCon, GeekyCon, LeakyCon, etc. each year, they bring with them a traveling library at which con attendees can swap books! So the book club is named after this idea. Anyone can join our Goodreads book club by donating $35 or more, and/or you can join our Facebook group, no donation required!

If you want to donate to this year’s Friends of the Apparating Library campaign, it would be pretty sweet for you do to so at this link, which is my personal fundraising page for the campaign, or this link, which is the Apparating Library Book Club team page! Or any of the other awesome teams (I’m a personal fan of Sirius Black’s Gender Identity). 1 dollar = 1 book donated! Help us reach our goal! Help us bring books to children who need them!

The Resist Readathon!

To kick off the “under new management” revitalization of the book club, in parallel to the Accio Books campaign, the book club will be hosting the Resist Readathon! As you might imagine, the Resist Readathon is focused on reading books that deal with some very important issues right now: trans rights, black lives matter, feminism, and immigration. Without further ado, here is our reading list!

1. The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas – Inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement, Angie Thomas’s searing debut about an ordinary girl in extraordinary circumstances addresses issues of racism and police violence with intelligence, heart, and unflinching honesty.
2. In the Country We Love: My Family Divided by Diane Guerrero – Diane Guerrero, the television actress from the megahit Orange is the New Black and Jane the Virgin, was just fourteen years old on the day her parents and brother were arrested and deported to Colombia while she was at school. Born in the U.S., Guerrero was able to remain in the country and continue her education, depending on the kindness of family friends who took her in and helped her build a life and a successful acting career for herself, without the support system of her family. In the Country We Love is a moving, heartbreaking story of one woman’s extraordinary resilience in the face of the nightmarish struggles of undocumented residents in this country.
3. Difficult Women by Roxanne Gay – A collection of stories by the award-winning author of Bad Feminist explores the hardscrabble lives, passionate loves and quirky human connections experienced by diverse protagonists, including a woman who pretends she does not know that her husband and his identical twin switch places with her.
4. Rethinking Normal: A Memoir in Transition by Kaite Rain Hill – In this Young Adult memoir, a transgender girl shares her personal journey of growing up as a boy and then undergoing gender reassignment during her teens.

Sound awesome? Yeah. Thought so.

Even if you can’t donate to the HPA, reading these books helps power the resistance! If you want to join in the readings, we are starting to read The Hate U Give on April 4th! Use the hashtag #ResistReadathon to share your progress and thoughts on social media! Feel free to share this post around, too! 😉

• The Hate U Give – Starts April 4
• In the Country We Love – Starts April 18
• Difficult Women – Starts May 2
• Rethinking Normal – Starts May 16

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