Children’s Book World in Haverford is a special place for children and parents

By Rebecca Shaw

“Eloise.”

A man and his wife walk into Children’s Book World, an independent bookstore in Haverford, Pennsylvania. They want to buy their granddaughter the initial Eloise, a series about a little girl who lives in the Plaza hotel in New York that was first published in 1955.

Smiles spread across the faces of the booksellers working at the store. One bookseller, Leslie, walks immediately towards the picture-book section of the store. She pulls out all the Eloise picture books she can find from the bookshelves.

“Well I found Eloise in Paris and Eloise Takes A Bath,” she says handing the books to the couple. “But I’m sure we have the original—I saw it the other day, give me two seconds, I’m going to look in the back.”

Julie, another bookseller, stands behind the cash register counter. She begins talking to the couple.

“Eloise was my favorite book as a child. Your granddaughter is going to love it. Such a great story.”

“You don’t think it’s too juvenile,” the man asks. “ My granddaughter is a genius.”

“No, it’s not juvenile at all. I can read it to you, when Leslie comes back.” says Julie.

“Found it!” says Leslie.

“Ok, you’re sure it’s not below her reading level? My granddaughter is going to a school for gifted students in New York City. She’s a beauty too,” he says as he shows Leslie and Julie a picture of his granddaughter.

“ Eloise!” says Bookseller Sara, running out from the storage room. She grabs the book from Leslie and starts to read out loud from it.

“Well, you just witnessed a public dramatic reading of Eloise.” Julie says laughing, as she gift-wraps the book for the couple. “Your granddaughter is going to love it.”

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Every employee at Children’s Book World strives to place the perfect book in the hands of the perfect child.

In order to achieve this goal, all employees working at Children’s Book World are required to read every single book that comes into the store.

Children’s Book World owner, Hannah Schwartz along with her daughter, the store manager Heather Schwartz, attribute this requirement as one reason for the store’s longevity and success.

“When people shop here, they want our recommendations of what books their children would like,” explained Heather Schwartz. “We try hard to talk to the children to help find out what they enjoy reading, and then find books that match their interests. For instance, someone may need a book for a book report. If the child likes mysteries, we show him or her the mystery books available at the store and we discuss those books with the child. We sell books that fit the needs of every child.”

Before opening Children’s Book World in 1989, the owner, Hannah Swartz, worked as the children’s book-buyer for a decade. She was the book-buyer for the children’s section of an independent general bookstore called The Book House in Ardmore, Pennsylvania’s Suburban Square.

With the support of her family, Hannah Schwartz decided to open her own independent bookstore specifically for children. Heather Schwartz, who recently graduated college in 1989, helped her mother with the store for a few years. She then left the store to start a family and to open her own crafts supplies store in Ardmore’s Suburban Square.

Today, nearly 23 years after opening the store, Children’s Book World remains one of the few independent bookstores in the Main Line area.

“There used to be about six independent bookstores in the Main Line area that no longer exist,” said Heather Schwartz. “Unfortunately, there are fewer and fewer of us left in this area.” Continue reading →

Tyree Dumas is on a mission to change the lives of urban kids through dance

By Ben Porten

Tyree Dumas is defined by ambition. Whether its his own or ambition that he tries to instill in others, ambition rules his life.

An entrepreneur and self-made man, Dumas has a lot to be proud of. At age 22, his youth is enough to make anybody feel insecure about their own accomplishments. But Dumas isn’t looking to brag, he’s only looking to help.

Dumas, a Philadelphia native, is the founder and CEO of Dollar Boyz, a dance organization designed to keep kids out of trouble. Dumas, who goes by TopDollar, began Dollar Boyz after going to teen parties with his younger cousins, who would impress the party goers with their dance moves. When he recorded them and put them up on YouTube, they instantly went viral. Today, the videos have more than 5.8 million views.

“What I noticed – every time I walked around in the streets, kids would get excited,” said Dumas. “Like, ‘oh my gosh, that’s TopDollar!’ like I was this big multimillionaire celebrity guy.”

Tyree Dumas

Emboldened by this and wanting to put his blooming star power to good use, Dumas decided to expand Dollar Boyz from a dance organization for his cousins into “an entertainment company that was open to all.”

When he opened the doors to all, all answered. Now, there are more than 5,000 registered members in the Tri-State area alone, with thousands of followers on Twitter and Facebook to boot. Dollar Boyz expanded its operations to meet the needs of its members, and now includes a record label as well.

“I’m trying to expose these kids to things they’re not generally exposed to,” said Dumas. “What I’ve come to find is they don’t have a positive male role model in their life to steer them in the right direction, so I kind of fill that void for them.”

The Dollar Boyz dance program has been up and running for over three years now, with practices every Tuesday and Thursday from 4:00 to 6:00 p.m. Anywhere from 30 to almost 300 kids show up for these, mostly to dance, but sometimes just to watch. “That’s not a problem; just as long as they’re not on the street causing mayhem, that’s cool,” Dumas said.

The location of the dance program changes from year to year, to better accommodate the kids since they come from all over the region. “Parents would drive their kids over from Jersey to be part of the program,” said Dumas. “I try to move around throughout the city to cater to all the kids.”

Dumas is currently collaborating with Concerned Black Males and Susan Slawson, the First Deputy Commissioner of Philadelphia’s Parks & Recreation, to expand into three recreation centers around the city. A parent of one of the participating children is going to donate a banquet hall in Susquehanna to help provide more spaces, too.

Funding may be sparse at times, but Dumas’ enthusiasm tends to be repaid in enthusiasm in turn, so things seem to work out for him. “I’m the kind of person, no matter what, I find a way to make stuff possible and to overcome my obstacles and get the things done,” said Dumas. “I pretty much invest all my personal money into the organization.”

“I’m able to reach the unreachable,” Dumas said. “The kids that don’t go to traditional programs, for whatever reason, they’re drawn to Dollar Boyz.”

John Brice, Dumas’s associate at Concerned Black Men, offered an explanation: “What’s extraordinary, is not only is he doing what he’s doing, but he came from some of the same seats where some of them came from,” said Bryce. “He went to Kensington High School, and so who better to be an example to the students but someone who sat in the same seats where they sat, and is now in the position where he has nine different Facebook pages because he has so many fans and followers on Twitter.”

Dumas’s newest project, Dollar Boyz Academy, is an attempt to give children the same opportunities he had. And very interesting opportunities, they were. Continue reading →

Stacey Howard has made a quick rise in the world of fashion design

 By Bianca Heyward

On the eighth floor of a glass building in New York City’s lower West side, Stacey Howard, 25, spends a lazy Sunday afternoon in her apartment wearing baggy black pants, and a baggy black sweater with a seemingly infinite supply of holes and rips.

She is a shoe designer who is making a name for herself in the wider world of fashion.

Her unbound creativity and resourcefulness that got her where she is now – designing shoes for the successful fashion line, Elizabeth and James, started by Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen.

Her trajectory to success has been rapid and steep.

Stacey Howard

Howard, a Los Angeles native, attended the School of Visual Arts in New York City, where she studied graphic design. During her senior year there, she jump-started her career by catching the interest of Steve Madden, a world-renowned fashion footwear mogul, who over the past 20 years has turned his brand into a household name.

“One of my projects for school was to customize a product,” explained Howard. “So, I went down to visit my friend in Savannah. And we were going to all these military bases, like all these flea markets, and I was really into it. We found so many combat boots that they were selling in Soho for like $150. And these boots were $10. So I decided to take all the boots back to New York and buy all these clothes, and cut them up and glue them on to the boots. And so I wanted to start selling them, and someone told Steve Madden about my project, and he wanted to help.” Madden is the founder of the successful footwear company, Steve Madden Ltd.

When Howard started working with Madden, they created their own line called “Stacey and Steve”, which was sold on the Steve Madden website. It consisted of combat-style boots, which came in various colors.

While working there, Howard recalls, there was no such thing as a typical day. Exploration and creativity were not only encouraged, but, part of the job description. “At a certain point I was taking military jackets and putting fabrics on it, and he (Madden) was like ‘Alright, lets sell it in the store’”.

Her experience with Steve Madden was invaluable. Working for a large company that attracts a wide audience, the challenge, as a designer, was finding out what other people would buy.

“I’ve gone with Steve to different cities, and watched how many girls love his shoes, and how many different shoes there are. For example, the girl in Oklahoma is loving a shoe that I would never think someone would love, but it’s awesome. They’re screaming over that one shoe. So you give them a wide range [of styles], and people are happy, and he does it for a good price.”

After having spent almost two-and-a half years working with Steve Madden, Howard was ready for something different. “I didn’t even have an office,” she says laughing. “I would sit with Steve at his office. It was really cool for awhile, and then I was like alright, I’m 25 years old, I need to start actually working.”

A few months ago, Howard starting designing shoes for Elizabeth and James, which is one of Steve Maddens licenses. She works as a team alongside her co-worker, Jackson Moad. Continue reading →

The Bryn Mawr Breakfast Club that meets all night

By Devanshi Vaid

The night is cold. It is sharp enough to shake you awake and foggy enough keep you believing that you are existing in a space of suspended reality. Laughter rings in the misty, cloudless sky. The joke is unimportant.

What is important is that Mine Serizawa is doubled over, Meghna Singh is wiping tears away from her face, Amanda Fernandez is grinning stupidly and Lisa Klinman is laughing so hard she almost chokes on the smoke from her cigarette.

It is 4:20 a.m. on a regular Monday morning. Serizawa, Singh, Fernandez and Klinman are still awake and are at The Lusty Cup – a café and 24 hour computer lab located at the bottom floor of Canaday Library at Bryn Mawr College.

Some college students pull all-nighters when they are desperate. This group pulls them because they like them. It’s part of their regular study routine — and their night had just hit its peak.

It does not matter much who the jacket belongs to. Inhabitants of Lusty Cup at this hour are most likely to all be members of the Breakfast Club – they have grown to be friends over the course of the countless nights they spend together at this café.

Needless to say, the four of them had been here for a while.

***

10:30p.m.

Klinman entered Lusty with her friends Julia Stuart and Maura Barrett. At this time, the Lusty was well populated – there were groups of students studying, people getting coffee, others checking their email and hanging out.

The atmosphere was lively. The night was ending for a few of the people here, and just about beginning for a few others. However, the ones that were going to be in the café for a long time made themselves prominent.

Klinman and her friends headed to a table at the back where they set up. They were prepared for the night – dressed almost uniformly in sweatpants and comfortable t-shirts, they were armed with bottles of caffeinated drinks, bags of food and candy.

Their work was frequently interrupted with conversation about recent dates, rugby, and comments from the endless stream of passersby. They didn’t forget to talk about the things they were supposed to be studying.

“On Friday, I said I was going to write an outline for my final paper. Until now I’ve got six potential titles…” said Stuart. “I’m giving myself an extension on this outline.” Self proclaimed extensions are valid, the three of them were preparing for finals week and were attempting to work ahead.

“So anyway,” said Klinman looking at her Political Science paper, “back to genocide?” Continue reading →

The web has become a popular venue for home crafters to offer their wares

By Laura Reeve

Flea markets and craft fairs, the marketplace of crafters and hipsters held in parks and high school parking lots, are now open 24/7. The homemade community has gone viral, and young entrepreneurs are making names for themselves in online marketplaces.

The Internet is now bustling with crafters, zinesters, and artists selling their handmade work online. They are also meeting other like-minded individuals and creating communities of artists and art lovers all through the internet.

Kelly-Anne (www.etsy.com/shop/tinytangerines), 27, a mother of two, started crocheting hats for her own newborn daughter in 2008. Kelly started posting pictures of the hats and headbands she made for her daughter online on “mommy communities,” online communities for women who want to connect with other mothers with similar due dates. Soon she was getting multiple requests to make hats for other women and their babies.

“I started getting requests from my mommy friends to make hats for their little ones, and it was suggested that I open an Etsy shop,” Kelly said. “I had no idea my hats would be so popular. I am so lucky to have found a way to help with the bills, while staying home with my kids and doing something I really love.”

Crafters like Kelly are not limited to one site. Though many of them have set up shop at Etsy.com, an online marketplace and

A Casey Lee Patch

community, these artists also share their work through social media platforms like Facebook and Tumblr. These websites allow artists to market themselves and build their fan base.

“Tumblr has become a huge thing,” Ramsey Beyer (www.etsy.com/shop/everydaypants), 26, an artist from Philadelphia said. “I started using it for my comics 6 months ago and it has really increased my readership. Things fly around the internet. It’s like word of

Casey Lee

mouth through the internet.”

Tumblr, a blogging platform that has been described as “micro-blogging,” allows users to “re-blog” other peoples posts so that content is constantly being shared and circulated through the web. Photos, links, and videos are posted and then reposted, spread to a wider and wider group of people.

“Every time someone re-blogs your work, all of their followers see it, and if one of their follower re-blogs it all of their followers see it,” said Kelly. “Suddenly your work is spreading like wild fire and all you had to do was take a nice picture of it.”

Casey Lee (www.etsy.com/shop/oldmotherfox), 21, a college student sells patches for extra income. Patches are screen printed and designed pieces of cloth sewn on to other articles of clothing such as sweatshirts, t-shirts, bags, and jeans. Lee also utilizes Tumblr to sell more of her work. Though, because of how Tumblr works, she felt like people who follow her blog do most of the promotional Continue reading →

The newest trend in running shoes is the oldest known to man

By Erin Seglem

Sara Hess, a Haverford college junior, kneels down, grey shoelaces wrapped around her fingers. She secures her sneakers, which she fondly refers to as “bricks.” Hess’ feet need heavy control because she tends to pronate severely, when she’s running –her foot rolls to the outside as it hits the ground. It can cause injury if not controlled. So, she wears shoes developed to provide her feet with strong control.

Ever since the 1970’s running fad, athletic companies have poured billions of dollars into producing the perfect running shoe that were meant to make running safer and prevent injury. Eventually the modern running shoe, full of cushioning and plastic control was developed.

A few years ago, however, runners began to question whether the extra support and control was necessary. So, shoe companies began pouring their resources into developing a new shoe and came up with a minimalist solution. So minimal they are called barefoot-style running shoes.

Part of the inspiration came from Christopher McDougal, a journalist and runner, who suffered from a seemingly unending list of

injuries. McDougal sought out the answer to his problems and found it within the Mexican Copper Canyons. The subjects of his 2009

Vibram Running Shoes

bestseller, Born to Run, are the Tarahumara. Members of reclusive society, they are known for running amazing distances barefoot or in thin leather sandals — generally between 50 and 100 miles at once. Despite the punishment on their feet, they managed to avoid the common injuries that most normal distance runners struggle with today.

McDougal discovered that a major difference between the Tarahumara and the average distance runner was their footwear. This idea has since spread to runners everywhere. Jordan Schilit, a junior at Haverford College as well as a member of the men’s cross country team says he does many of his shorter morning runs in a pair of Vibram Five-fingers, “It’s basically like running barefoot…but it’s a bit more protective on my feet when running over rocks and roots.” he said.

The shoe provides a thin shell that snugly fits the foot and has acts like a glove, separating the toes.

In the last year, two major athletic companies, Brooks and New Balance, have released new lines of shoes meant to mimic barefoot running. Like the five-fingers they provide little more than protection from things that might hurt a truly barefoot. Nike also revised their lightweight shoe, the Free, to more resemble the barefoot style.

Most runners seem to see the new style of running as something to try, but with caution. As Emily Scott, a Haverford College sophomore who, while at home, works for a running store, explained: “Whenever someone comes into the store asking about the minimalist shoes I make sure that they understand that our body is not used to it.” Shifting from a shoe with lots of support to one with none can cause new injuries because running barefoot creates an entirely different kind of footstrike. Continue reading →

Haverford  College students are finding out how to do well while they eat well

By Molly Minden

Steaming sweet potatoes and roasted radishes sprinkled with salt, pepper, and fresh rosemary. Layers of red and yellow onions and dark purple kale leaves. Sautéed broccoli, chopped bell peppers, heirloom tomatoes, spicy green horseradish leaves and slender stalks of celery. All grown within 50 miles of your house and harvested yesterday.

Freshly dug carrots, bags of popcorn, garlic, peppery black radishes. Bunches of leeks, red and yellow stalks of Swiss chard with deep green leaves, string beans, beets, purple potatoes, and crisp stayman apples.

Haverford College students participating in this semester’s Community Supported Agriculture, or CSA, receive a cardboard box brimming with these vegetable and more every week.

For $375 a semester, a group of students can invest in a farmer. They give him the money upfront, so he can use it to buy seeds and tools for the season. Then, every week, the students receive a huge box of freshly harvested vegetables, from cabbage and spinach to butternut squash and fennel.

While some items, such as apples, are already a staple in the students’ lives, others, such as romanesco – a lime-green fractal cousin of cauliflower and broccoli- require experimentation and research in how to prepare them.

A Box of Organic Vegetables

“I like the surprise of what’s going to come, and it’s a challenge to cook with sometimes unidentified green things. I enjoy that,” said Haverford College student Emily Northrop, ’14.

Members of a CSA choose to invest in the farmer. When the farmer grows too much zucchini, the students use it in zucchini lasagna, zucchini bread, and even zucchini soufflé. If the vegetables flourish, the students receive boxes overflowing with goods. When floods or other difficult weather hits, the boxes are less full.

But students aren’t just buying into food shares. They also want more of a connection to their food.

“I like knowing that there’s a face on the other side. It’s his farm, and the employees aren’t mistreated migrant farmers, but people who are actually excited about farming and have good jobs,” said Northrop.

Students want roasted vegetables with a side of community.

Yet, for Andrew Thompson, HC ’14, this connection isn’t as present in reality. “I really don’t feel like we’re part of a community at all. I feel like I show up to a garage and I take boxes out,” he said. Continue reading →

At Bryn Mawr, they are trying to get super-serious students to have fun, fun, fun.

By Kady Ashcraft

All work and no play makes for an unhappy student body — and an incentive to improve the social life at Bryn Mawr College.

School administrators became increasingly aware of the lack of a thriving and enjoyable social atmosphere on campus during the last school year. There was a sharp increase of student visits to the health center’s therapist along with what seemed to be a general depression across campus.

Students also noticed a tired and unenthusiastic attitude spreading amongst their peers.

“Everyone seemed to be in a funk,” said junior, Caroline Herman. “There wasn’t much excitement on campus.”

Adding to the monotonous atmosphere was the difficulty to get off campus. Most students do not own cars and rely on public transportation if they want to travel into nearby Philadelphia.

The Paoli-Thorndale regional rail stops about a block from campus and can get a student into the city in 25 minutes. There is also the option of the Norristown high-speed rail, which is further from Bryn Mawr’s campus, but is less expensive than the regional rail.

A trip on the regional rail can cost up to $10 round trip if the tickets are not bought beforehand. The Norristown rail, a three-quarter

I am soooo bored.

mile distance from campus, costs a little over $5 roundtrip.

Purchasing tokens and transfer stubs was unfamiliar to some students, as well.

“It’s a confusing system,” said senior, Julia Ryan.

While Philadelphia is a center for fun and adventure, students at Bryn Mawr felt removed and isolated from the city. Like many small, suburban schools, students often found themselves trapped inside the “Bryn Mawr Bubble.”

The bubble can be a comforting thing, but also restricting and alienating.

“As an upperclassmen, I kind of know everything about the campus,” said Ryan.

The increasing desire to make college life more fun — outside The Bubble — reached the school’s administrators, namely Bryn Mawr’s deans, who then decided to take action.

Halfway through the summer an email was sent out to students with the title “A Letter to Returning Students.” The innocuous subject line could have easily been overlooked, but it contained big news.

The Dean’s office announced it would be issuing free Septa passes and tokens for the Norristown high-speed line as well as the regional rail. Along with the announcement was a long letter explaining the hope that students would begin to feel more engaged in the world around them. In other words, go out and have fun.

Dean of the Undergraduate College, Michele Rasmussen, wrote that she wondered if “work harder, play less” is the ethos that ends up being adopted when students get bogged down with the incredibly high academic standards they set for themselves.” Continue reading →

It seemed like a good idea to get Korean students in area schools together. Then the fights began.

By Cho Park

The music blares as bodies dance wildly to the beat of the bass. The air is steamy, almost tropical, as sweat drips off people’s faces, accompanied by the distinctive odor of alcohol and smoke. Tension rises as groups of young men eye each other from across the room. Then it happens.

It’s a cross word, or a wrong look, that gets one boy shoving another for having “messed with his girl”. He falls backward into his group of friends. They quickly retaliate by swinging fists and it quickly turns into an all out brawl. Police sirens wail and the cops break in, only to find that most of the young men have vanished, leaving broken glass and streaks of blood in their wake.

It’s just another night at a typical Korean student party in Philadelphia..

The culprits are identified as students from Temple and Drexel University, with fingers pointing over exactly why the incident occurred.

“My friend said that he was just giving this girl directions when the Temple guy attacked him… It’s probably all the alcohol that was laying around,” said Yoo-jun Koh, president of the Korean Student Association (KSA) at Drexel.

This fight isn’t the first of its kind. Students recalled that other joint efforts among Korean associations at schools region have often ended in fights.

“I think there was maybe two that I remember specifically,” said Stephanie Kim, president of the KSA at Haverford and Bryn Mawr. “It depends a lot on the security available and the venue, though, since events held in the city and outside of school seem a lot harder to control.”

What is the cause of the tension? Korean students point to class differences between Korean-born-and-raised students who are attending college in the states and American-born Koreans at the schools. The international students tend to view the Korean-Americans as lower class. In turn, the Korean-Americans see the internationals as snobs.

It wasn’t an issue until recently because these gatherings among Korean students at different schools are relatively new. It started with Walter Hong, a senior at Villanova University, who decided to reach out to the neighboring schools in his sophomore year.

“Villanova never had a KSA before I came, so when my friends and I founded it, we needed a lot of help,” said Hong, a founder of the Villanova KSA. “We decided to ask the schools around us what they did for annual events, and that’s how we started a network and decided that this might be a fun idea.” Continue reading →

Can vinyl records save the music industry? A report from the front lines.

By Ben Porten

There’s a new epidemic that’s been creeping up the last couple years: black crack. You’ll want about 180 grams for a good rush and it will cost anywhere from a quarter to thousands of dollars. By the way, you don’t smoke, snort, shoot or eat it — you put it on your turntable.

Black crack is the affectionate nickname collectors have for vinyl records In spite of an entertainment industry-wide slump, vinyl sales have been steadily growing for the last couple years, with the rate of growth getting bigger each year.

Why is vinyl making a comeback? It’s bulky, more expensive than CDs or mp3s, and you can lose and break them, unlike mp3s. Common sense suggests that vinyl should have become less popular with the growth of alternatives and killed outright by digital music, but recent data shows that this is not be the case.

Until 2007, vinyl sales hovered around one million units per year, according to Nielsen reports. However, 2008 sales almost doubled, and by 2010, sales had reached 2.8 million records.

Last year (2010) was a rough year for the music industry; album sales dropped by 13%, with only a 13% increase in digital sales to compensate (digital sales are roughly a quarter of overall music sales) according to Rolling Stone. This makes the rapid growth of vinyl all the more remarkable — and perplexing.

Sales are continuing to rise — an Economist article reported that vinyl sales for 2011 were up 39% over the same period last year. Retail Gazette reported a 55% increase in UK.

Philadelphia record stores are feeling this bump, too.

Jesse Riggins, of The Marvelous, a record store on South 40th Street in West Philly, said that records have definitely been selling better. The clientele seems to be split between older people who grew up buying records (and possibly aren’t aware you no longer have to) and 20- to 30-somethings who budget for records.

Possibly because of the clientele, the records that are the most popular are overwhelmingly oldies or alternative rock. This matches a recent Nielsen report, which found that 93 out of the 100 best selling vinyl records of 2011 were either rock or alternative.

The Marvelous tries to tailor its selection for its customers, and the vast majority of their sales are in used records. New records are a gamble because the store eats the cost if they don’t sell, and they only turn about $3 in profit per record. Continue reading →