Digging for Words

Jose Alberto Gutierrez

and the Library He Built

Schwartz & Wade Books

(Penguin Random House)

(pub. 9.8.2020) 

40 pages

A True Tale with

A Cherry On Top   

A uthor: Angela Burke Kunkel
       and illustrator: Paolo Escobar

C haracter: Jose Alberto Gutierrez

O verview:

 

"In the city of Bogata, in the barrio of La Nueva Gloria, there live two Joses. One is a boy who dreams of Saturdays-- that's the day he gets to visit Paradise, the library. The second Jose is a garbage collector. From dusk until dawn, he scans the sidewalks as he drives, squinting in the dim light, searching household trash for hidden treasure . . . books! Some are stacked in neat piles, as if waiting for José. Others take a bit more digging. Ever since he found his first book, Anna Karenina, years earlier, he's been collecting books--thick ones and thin ones, worn ones and almost new ones-- to add to the collection in his home. And on Saturdays, kids like little Jose run to the steps of Paradise to discover a world filled with books and wonder.

With an evocative text by a debut author, and rich, stunning illustrations from an up-and-coming Colombian illustrator, here is a celebration of perseverance, community, and the power of books."

T antalizing taste: 

"Jose walks home from the garage. He pauses on the step to unlock the door, balancing books in the crook of his arm.

 A few pages to read, a few hours to  dream, and then it is a new day. Tonight, he revisits Macondo, a magical village deep in the jungles of Colombia, and he is lost in a place where time moves by its own rules."

And something more:  The Author's Note explains that "over ten million people live in the city of Bogota, Colombia. There are only nineteen libraries. There was no library in La Nueva Gloria barrio until 2000, when Jose Alberto Gutierrez took matters in his own hands.

A lifelong Bogota resident, Gutierrez is a former garbage collector who is known as the Lord of the Books... Today, in addition to running his library, Gutierrez directs the foundation he established, La Fuerza de las Palabras (The Strength of Words), which provides reading material to schools, organizations, and libraries across Colombia... Gutierrez himself went back to school in his fifties. It took  him three years to earn his high school diploma, but in building his library, he  empowered himself as  well as others."