A co-owner of a local bookstore discussed the importance of multilingual children’s literature for Latino refugee children at Evanston Public Library (Illinois) on Saturday December 9th, 2016.

EPL kicked off a monthly series about children’s literature on Saturday with a presentation from Jeff Garrett, who spoke about his experiences traveling to the Rio Grande Valley as part of a project to help bring books to refugee children living along the U.S.-Mexico border. Garrett is a partner of Bookends and Beginnings, 1712 Sherman Ave.

Garrett’s August 2014 trip to the Rio Grande Valley was led primarily by the International Board on Books for Young People and REFORMA, an organization that works to promote library and information services for Latinos and Spanish-speaking individuals in the U.S. As a member of IBBY, Garrett helped organize the trip, which included visits to government, church and private agencies responding to the refugee crisis in Latin America.

“We wanted to see first-hand the work underway to improve the quality of life of arrested and detained central American refugee children … as well as to see how they could be supported through books and reading,” Garrett said.

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