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The Detroiter behind a pop-up literacy initiative is branching out.
Alyce Hartman, founder and executive director of Birdie’s Bookmobile, expects to open a children’s bookstore this month at 8700 Mack Avenue on the city’s east side.
Hartman launched the bookmobile initiative in 2022, hitting the road in her van and delivering hundreds of new and used diverse books to classrooms, after-school programs, nonprofit organizations, and police precincts in Detroit. She also installed little free libraries at Nichols Elementary-Middle School, Detroit Enterprise Academy, and other sites.
The new shop, which she is calling Birdie’s Book Nest, is geared toward students who may not have access to books at home, Hartman said.
According to Unite for Literacy, a website offering free digital picture books for students from different cultures and backgrounds, including multilingual students, Detroit is considered a book desert — a geographic area where homes are more likely to have fewer than 100 books.
Hartman said the books will be free for students who attend a school in the Detroit Public Schools Community District or any student attending a Title I school in metro Detroit or whose family receives Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, benefits. The first 100 students who sign up will get 10 books to start and then three each month after that. Parents can fill out an interest form on the website. Students who sign up after that first 100 will get three free books per month, Hartman said.
Hartman is still finalizing plans for store hours. During the school year, she will continue to do book fairs at schools during the week, with limited hours at the store on some weeknights and Saturdays. During the summer, there will be more availability at the brick-and-mortar location, she said.
Hartman will once again be seeking donations of money and books and will need volunteers to help run the store. Anyone interested should check out the website.
BridgeDetroit talked to Hartman about her new venture, what kind of books the shop will offer, and what’s next for the bookmobile.
This interview was lightly edited for length and clarity.
You’ve been doing Birdie’s Bookmobile for a few years now. What made you want to open your own bookstore?
It’s a way to add on to what we’re doing – book access is still a top priority, or a continued priority, for our educators, families, and children. We’re really putting a spin on a traditional book bank. We’re setting it up to look like and operate like a children’s bookstore. Children will be able to come in, access the books, peruse, and take home the books that they’re guaranteed every month.
How long has this been in the making?
I would say a year because we have a warehouse space, and the warehouse is just a warehouse. It’s cold, it’s dusty, it has stacks of books in boxes. But we always get requests from teachers saying, ‘Hey, can we come and get books?’ And we get requests from the community, like ‘Hey, we’ve got books that we’d love to drop off. Where can we take them?’ And [the warehouse] is really not accessible like that to them. That was kind of the initial thought; we need a place where people can come that’s visually appealing … and then it developed from there.
Were you always interested in having the bookstore on the east side?
I have lived here in this community [in Pingree Park] for almost six years now, and I was the director of education at MACC Development for a number of years and attend Mack Avenue Community Church. As a part of that nonprofit organization, we lived in the community that we serve. I purchased a home in this community. I do life with people here, and I wouldn’t have looked anywhere outside of my community to get a building to do this.
What kind of books are you planning to have in the store? Do you think you’ll have some books for adults as well?
We will have books for children from birth to the pre-K age group, all the way to young adults. We’ll have board books, chapter books, and picture books. We’ll have graphic novels, and we’ll have [young adult] books for some of our older students.
The majority of the store will cater to children, but we will have adult books. We don’t purchase adult books, but we do get donations. About 80% of our books used to be purchased. Now, about 50% of our books are purchased and the other 50% are books that are donated.
Is there anything new going on with the bookmobile? Will you continue using it even when the bookstore opens?
Our first bookmobile, we lost to a fire just one month short of being up and going for a year. Then we got another bookmobile, and it was stolen. Now, just two weeks ago, we got a bookmobile from Arts and Scraps. It’s their original ScrapMobile, and it’s really exciting.
We will be adding new schools to our roster during the next school year. We just added some new schools to our roster, and we are continuing to do so every week, specifically with schools that are contacting us. We might not be able to get to them every single month, but we do make sure that their students have the books that they need. We also have classroom book boxes so teachers can reach out to us. If they go on the website, they can complete a form, and we provide them with free boxes to help them build their classroom libraries as well.
How does it feel to see the rise of independent booksellers in Detroit, like 27th Letter Books and Next Chapter Books?
I love that because it means that we have more access to books. It means that children have more access to books. It means that families have more access to books, and it means that we’re moving closer to eradicating book deserts in our city.
Micah Walker is a reporter for BridgeDetroit. You can reach her at mwalker@bridgedetroit.com.
