Most 12-year-olds get on their parents’ last nerve when they leave their rooms a mess. But Tatiana Grossman’s folks couldn’t be prouder of their daughter’s clutter. The hundreds of books littering her floor represent Tatiana’s effort to make the world a better and more literate place.
The books — nearly 400 at last count — are bound for the Sebako Primary School in Botswana. Tatiana’s goal: to send 1,000 volumes to the underprivileged southern African community. It’s part of the African Library Project (ALP), a national organization whose mission is to stock library shelves across the African continent.
With her bat mitzvah coming up, the seventh-grader at Gideon Hausner Jewish Day School could have had a lot on her mind besides rounding up used books. But as an avid reader herself, and with an instinct for tzedekah, Tatiana wouldn’t have it any other way.
“I felt bad for the people who didn’t have even one book to read,” says the Palo Alto youth. “I love reading, so I was interested.”
Tatiana is one of those young readers who often gets scolded for bringing a book to the dinner table. She loves the Harry Potter series and is usually juggling 10 books at a time. Now she wants to share her passion for reading with children in a land far far away.
A few months ago, Tatiana’s mother, Lauren Janov, told her daughter about a similar ALP drive at Walter Hayes Elementary, the school Tatiana’s brother attends. That was all it took for Tatiana to launch her own book drive.
“I went to friends and neighbors first,” she says. “I knew them the most, and I knew they would have a few books. They supplied me with 370 so far.”
She’s also getting some help from the local Palo Alto library, which has donated scores of volumes to the cause, many of them spillover from a restocking of the children’s book section. Tatiana even put up a kiosk in the library lobby where patrons can donate their books.
Collecting the 1,000 books won’t be a problem. Paying to ship them to Africa is another story, and constitutes the other aspect of Tatiana’s mission.
She’s asking book donors to pony up some dough, if they can. And come January, when she has her bat mitzvah at Congregation Beth Am in Los Altos Hills, she expects to earn some money, much of which will go toward shipping costs. To keep those costs down, Tatiana requests paperbacks rather than hardcovers.
Lauren Janov has been doing some major-league kvelling over her daughter. “It touches my heart,” she says. “She’s just beaming. You always wonder where their energies will direct them, and you hope they’ll go in a positive direction. This will combine the satisfaction of getting through the bat mitzvah process with the satisfaction of knowing it’s not all about her.”
As cluttered as her room is now, Tatiana thinks she can pack another 300 or so within the confines of her four walls. More than that and Public Storage may need to come over for a consultation. But through it all, the youngster remains caught up with a spirit of tzedakah.
“I’m sure when I’m done I’ll be sad that it’s over,” she says, “but I’m sure I’ll do something else. It feels like I’m doing something good for the world.”
If you would like to donate books or money to Tatiana Grossman’s African Library Project
campaign, email her at [email protected]. For information on the ALP, visit
www.africanlibraryproject.org.