It should come as no surprise that we, like many of you, are taking November to pause and give thanks. Without a doubt, there is no group of people we are more thankful for than our corps of enthusiastic and capable volunteers who make our operation possible.  We are grateful for the wonderful people who share their free time reading and writing with the students of Chicago and beyond. We are appreciative that these generous individuals were afforded the opportunities growing up that allowed them to learn to love reading and writing, or even how to read and write at all. And finally, we are thankful that each and every one of you is committed to ending the literacy crisis, and that you are taking action to do so. 

I have said it before, and I will say it again: Volunteers truly are the lifeblood of Open Books. From all of the Open Books staff and the thousands of students we have worked with, THANK YOU!

Ava Zeligson
Volunteer Coordinator

Our Adventures In Creative Writing field trip schedule is full through the end of the year (and then some)! Please join us as a writing coach on as many Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday mornings as you like. Help guide 4^th-12^th graders through an exciting creative non-fiction writing workshop in prose, poetry, or slam poetry!

It gives me great pleasure to introduce you all to Cary, one of our most stellar and tireless writing coaches at Adventures in Creative Writing field trips. Cary has been spending her mornings at Open Books for a solid year now, and we absolutely cannot imagine field trips without her. She brings her awesome energy every single time and the room is always a million times better for it. When the school year started a few months ago and our Fall field trip schedule filled right up, I was just as happy realizing it meant we'd have Cary back around along with our 1,000+ student writers.