Your Book Belongs Here
Young people around the world are writing extraordinary books. Now they have a library of their own.
Founded by author Dave Eggers, the International Library of Young Authors is the first library dedicated entirely to books written by young people. It grew out of more than two decades of work by 826 Valencia and a global network of youth writing centers, which have published upwards of 10,000 books.
For Eggers, the library demonstrates that young people’s stories, ideas, hopes and fears are worth publishing, and worth keeping.
Located on Valencia Street in San Francisco, just across from 826, the library is wonderfully weird: shelves filled with books by young authors, typewriters ready for writing, secret rooms waiting to be found, and chairs with giant floppy arms that hug you while you read. Young people come for field trips, readings and workshops, to write stories, make zines and publish books of their own.
Most remarkably, the library makes a decidedly analog case for creativity in an increasingly automated world. Eggers argues that young people still want something deeply human: to sit shoulder-to-shoulder with someone, make something original and see it taken seriously. Give them the space and encouragement, he told journalist Christiane Amanpour, then “put it in a book, put it in a library.” Kids, he said, “will run through walls to be published.”
Office’s collaboration with Eggers and supporting youth voices goes back nearly two decades, when we helped reinvent 826 Valencia’s Pirate Supply Store, and later helped create the storefronts at 826 Tenderloin and 826 Mission Bay. We also designed the identity for the International Alliance of Youth Writing Centers.
For the International Library of Young Authors, Office created the logo, drawing inspiration from traditional bookplates. For centuries, a bookplate has declared, this book belongs here. It’s part of the collection. It’s valued. It’s worth keeping. The library makes that declaration about a whole generation of writers: Your book belongs here, and so do you.
