By a Macalester student and ESFL intern who wishes to remain anonymous for safety reasons. Written in August 2025 Do you ever feel overwhelmed with the complexity and violence
By Michaela Corniea Looking at the Larry Olds collection feels like looking at a bag of library secrets. More of an open secret at the East Side Freedom Library, it
Review by Michaela Corniea “One of the greatest and most urgent challenges facing today’s children relates to how they will nurture and educate tomorrow’s children. Therein lies the real hope
Review by Michaela Corniea Pedagogy of the Oppressed was originally written in Portuguese by Brazilian educator Paulo Freire, and first published in 1968. Two years later, in 1970, the English
By John McKenzie I first heard of Bill Onasch when I was asked to help catalog his books, which had been donated to the East Side Freedom Library after his
By Michaela Corniea A glance at the shelves which house the Salerno collection at the East Side Freedom Library evokes images of a great used book store. Many of the
Review by Michaela Corniea “Red November, black November. Bleak November, black and red; Hallowed month of Labor’s martyrs, Labor’s heroes, Labor’s dead.” excerpt from Ralph Chaplin’s song “November,” inspired by
By Vanessa East How Dare We! Write: A Multicultural Creative Writing Discourse, edited by Sherry Quan Lee, is a collection of essays from the pens of twenty-four Minnesota-connected writers of
By Katherine Grimm One of the goals of the East Side Freedom Library is to place the past and the present in conversation with each other. As a summer collaborator
By Naci Konar-Steenberg I love reading books that were written a long time ago. Books like The Great Gatsby, 1984 and Flatland, even though their subject matters are all over the place, grab my interest