Interview with Books Are Magic
By Johanna Contreras
The Books Are Magic team came to the Brooklyn Book Bodega Book Hub! Here is a photo of Emma Straub (Books Are Magic owner), Aatia Davison (Books Are Magic Marketing Assistant), Rebecca Cohen (Brooklyn Book Bodega Executive Director + Cofounder), and Colleen Callery (Book are Magic Marketing and Communications Director)
Books Are Magic is an independent bookstore in Cobble Hill that has been hugely supportive of our mission to increase the number of 100+ book homes and our work to remove barriers to book access for kids and families in NYC. They have supported us through: fundraising, message amplification, and book donations. They even came for a field trip to our book hub this fall. See more of their visit here. We love having them as part of the Brooklyn Book Bodega community.
We interviewed Colleen Callery, Marketing and Communications Director for Books Are Magic. We discussed all the amazing ways in which Books Are Magic helps to support Brooklyn Book Bodega, and why they think the Bodega is special. Check out our conversation below!
How did you get connected with Brooklyn Book Bodega?
I first learned about Brooklyn Book Bodega because we were doing a middle grade book club with Read 718 on Atlantic, which is a nonprofit that does literacy tutoring. We had a partnership with Brooklyn Independent where we were putting together a monthly middle school book club. I would go there to help facilitate and bring books, and on one of the bulletin boards there was a flyer for the Brooklyn Book Bodega. It said something like “Giving free books to the children all over the borough,” and I was like what is this? Rebecca was there and I asked her if she was a part of the Book Bodega. She said “Yes, we’re starting this thing, and it’s going to be awesome.” I thought it looked amazing, so we got in touch with them and asked them how we could help.
What does the partnership currently entail?
There are a couple of ways we work together, but right now, the main one is that if we have extra galleys, we donate them to the Brooklyn Book Bodega. We have so many galleys that we get every month from publishers that you can’t sell, they’re just advanced reading copies of books. So much of my life is trying to figure out what to do with them once they have come out.
We’ve also started helping the Book Bodega with fundraisers and different campaigns. For example, people will donate extra change on their purchases, and we can roll over the change into a donation account. We’ve done blanket campaigns where we give 10% of the day’s or weekend’s sales to them. We recently did a matching campaign for the Bodega’s most recent fundraiser, where we were able to match up to a certain number of monetary donations.
I’m always trying to help get the word out if they have events or things they want us to post about – I’ll put it in our newsletter and on our social.
And I’m putting a page together right now where people can donate new books directly to them. It’s something I’ve wanted to have available for a long time, but we just weren’t able to get it up until now.
And finally, the other thing I’m trying to do is think about future opportunities for dropping off book donations. We’re not a drop-off location at the moment just because we have such limited space. But I’m working with the rest of our team to try to find some future opportunities. Maybe we’ll do a week where you can come and drop off – something like that, where it’s a little bit more controlled, and we can dedicate some time and staff to sorting and organizing books.
What do you think makes Brooklyn Book Bodega special, and why do you choose to work with them?
I think they’re the best. Free books is such an amazing dream and mission. Everyone should have access to more of these resources—especially with the last year and a half, with schools and libraries being so diminished in their reach and their capacities. I feel like this is something that has proved its worth. Personally, I just want it to succeed. I just want everyone to know what it is and be able to reach out to them if their classroom, or their home, or wherever it is that they’re spending a lot of time, needs more books for their kids.
Also for me, it’s really important to cultivate relationships and partnerships with community members—people who are doing on-the-ground work to support and build up our neighborhoods. I just feel like they really care about what they’re doing, and they’re working hard to make it happen. I really want our team and our bookstore to be connected with people who are doing all kinds of work like that.
Do you have any advice for Rebecca and Seema as they continue to grow the organization?
I don’t know if I have any practical advice, I think we’re learning from them in so many ways. Watching them figure out how to do this from the ground up is super inspiring. I would just say – Keep going! Know that they have a big supportive community behind them that really believes in the work that they’re doing. Keep asking us for what they need. I think that’s something that I’ve been seeing a lot in the last year or two—if you put the ask out there, people know what it is that you’re looking for, and it’s so much easier to get that help.