MAALL Book to Action
MAALL Book to Action is a service project that brings MAALL together to read a common title and benefit the community in which the Annual Meeting is hosted by providing books to those who need them.
2023 Book to Action Program
From your 2023 Book to Action coordinators, Matt Timko and Gail Wechsler:
Under the Skin: The Hidden Toll of Racism on American Lives and on the Health of our Nation by Linda Villarosa.
From an award-winning writer at the New York Times Magazine and a contributor to the 1619 Project comes a landmark book that tells the full story of racial health disparities in America, revealing the toll racism takes on individuals and the health of our nation.
In Under the Skin, Linda Villarosa lays bare the forces in the American health-care system and in American society that cause Black people to “live sicker and die quicker” compared to their white counterparts. Today's medical texts and instruments still carry fallacious slavery-era assumptions that Black bodies are fundamentally different from white bodies. Study after study of medical settings show worse treatment and outcomes for Black patients.
From Chapter 1: “In my years of reporting on public health and race—including interviewing women and men of all classes whose health has been harmed by the medical system and being embedded for months in some of the most disadvantaged communities in the country-not to mention being a slave-descended African American myself, I have seen a race of people who have been mistreated and misunderstood, ignored and blamed, let down and left to fend for ourselves.”
Timely and thought-provoking, Under the Skin is sure to lead to lively discussion and debate. We look forward to discussing this book with you at the 2023 MAALL Conference.
Donate Books to the Gregory & Suzie Glazer Burt Boys & Girls Club
This particular location of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Central Iowa is on the Drake campus, within eyesight of the law school. The club provides services for young people to help ensure they are all "on track to graduate from high school with a plan for the future, demonstrating good character and citizenship, and living a healthy lifestyle." Read more about the impact of Boys & Girls Clubs.
We will be partnering with the local bookstore Reading in Public for this project. Follow these instructions to order your books from Reading in Public.
STEP BY STEP INSTRUCTIONS FOR ORDERING BOOKS FOR MAALL BOOK TO ACTION
- Go to https://readinginpublic.com/
- Search for the book(s) you want to order using the search box near the top of the page. Use this list for recommended books. Add each to the cart. If you want to avoid having to create an account when you check out, select items that have a green in stock message above the price.
- Click on the cart icon or Go to Cart to view your order.
- If you only ordered in-stock items:
- Click Checkout as Guest. (Local Arrangements will pick up.)
- Fill out the information requested. Under “Instructions or Comments” write: MAALL Book to Action.
- Pick your preferred method of communication (for a confirmation of your order)
- Click Save & Continue
- If you ordered one or more items not currently in stock:
- Click Login and Checkout, then Create an account.
- Enter your email, click Sign Up, and then complete the form to create your account.
- Back on the Your Cart screen, click Pick up in Store (Local Arrangements will pick up.)
- Under “Instructions or Comments” write: MAALL Book to Action.
- Pick your preferred method of communication (for a confirmation of your order)
- Click Save & Continue
6. Pay for the books. You can enter your credit card online or select Contact me for Payment; because Local Arrangements will pick these up for you, pay at pick up is not a valid option.
7. When you get a response email or text asking when you can pick up your order, please remind them you are donating to MAALL Book to Action. The bookstore knows Local Arrangements members will pick up all the books at the end.
Thanks to all MAALL members for their participation in this service project.
Gregory & Suzie Glazer Burt Boys & Girls Club Members Reading
History: MAALL was inspired to begin the Book to Action program in 2014 by our MAALL Annual Meeting keynote speaker, Steve Bogira. When asked what law librarians can do to help those in prison situations, Mr. Bogira suggested that we work on providing reading material for the incarcerated. Cindy Bassett announced the first Book to Action project in her Letter from the President in the September 2015 MAALL Markings (pages 7-8).
- 2015: Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson; donated books to the Missouri Department of Corrections.
- 2016: This Book is Overdue!: How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All by Marilyn Johnson; donated books to Positive Tomorrows.
- 2017: Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond; donated books to Literacy Services of Wisconsin.
- 2018: The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander; donated books to Project Stand.
- 2019: They Can't Kill Us All: Ferguson, Baltimore, and a New Era in America’s Racial Justice Movement by Wesley Lowery; donated books to Caring for Kids.
- 2020: Whatever It Takes: Geoffrey Canada’s Quest to Change Harlem and America by Paul Tough; donated books to Project Home Indy.
- 2021: One Person, No Vote by Carol Anderson; donated books to Family Development Services, a Head Start Organization.
- 2022: Just Pursuit: A Black Prosecutor's Fight for Fairness by Laura Coates; donated books to United Way of Vermillion, South Dakota (for recipients of the food bank, diaper bank and weekend backpack program).