WORDS OF WISDOM
She saw Nazis burn books. Now, this Holocaust survivor makes sure Connecticut children have reading access she was denied.
Ruth Weiner believes that, “when a child has a difficult reality, if they are able to read, they have an escape hatch. It’s that simple.” The 92-year-old Holocaust survivor is speaking from experience. Weiner spoke while sitting in the book room she created, tucked away on the top floor of the Sue Ann Shay Place apartments in Hartford. The permanent supportive housing facility on Pliny Street is home to some 32 households, mostly families who have experienced homelessness.
“When this building went up and we discovered that we had this room left, with no particular use destined for it, I brought up the idea,” she said. Weiner and her husband, Myron, provided furniture and solicited donations of books to create the cozy space, now filled with places to sit and lined with bookshelves.
But don’t call it a library.
“The kids are encouraged to find books, enjoy them and keep them,” she said. “They become the owners of books, get invested in them, and that’s huge.”
Over the years, the book room has also been a space where Weiner could meet with many of the children she has helped. Before the pandemic, she would host story times there several times a month.
Kristen Wieber is youth coordinator for My Sister’s Place, which operates the apartments. She runs programs for the more than 50 children who live here, and she said finding a secret bookworm can be one of the most rewarding aspects of the book room.
“The kids have a little bit more of a reverence for this space than they do for the youth room downstairs,” she said.
“They’re allowed to come in here and take as many books as you can. We do have some kids who come in here and they stack up and they’re walking down the hall, waddling!”