All LA County Library locations will be closed on Friday, July 4 in observance of Independence Day. Our Digital Library is open 24/7.
Paint an L.A. Weather Landscape inspired by our One Book, One County book, L.A. Weather by María Amparo Escandón. For adults.
This event will take place in the Children's Area. Attendance is limited and advance registration is required. To sign up, see library staff, or register online at Visit.LACountyLibrary.org/Events and filter by location or event date.
Paint an L.A. Weather Landscape inspired by our One Book, One County book, L.A. Weather by María Amparo Escandón and the following book passage:
“It’s always nice out.”
“People around the country tend to think so. East Coast people, people from the Midwest. They say, ‘There’s no weather in L.A. It’s always seventy-two and sunny,’ but that’s inaccurate. Few people consider our five seasons to be different from one another, but they are. You know this. I know this because we’ve lived here all our lives. Ah, but go ahead and tell this to someone back east. Our winter rainy season overlaps with our sunny and mild spring, then with our jacaranda season, our horribly hot late summer, and the Santa Ana season. That’s five seasons there. Of course, some people in town would include the award season, but that’s not climate-related unless Oscars’ red carpet gets rained on. And then, what about the drought, the winds, the marine layer, the brushfires, the gigafires, the mud-slides, the landslides, the flash floods, the atmospheric rivers…”
About One Book, One County
One Book, One County is a community reading program for Summer 2024 that celebrates collaboration, education, and conversation across our county and emphasizes the power of connected libraries to create connected communities. This program is unique because instead of one book for one library system, all 9.8 million County residents are invited to read one book together, with supportive programming provided by a network of partnered Los Angeles County library jurisdictions. Learn more about this initiative at LACountyLibrary.org/onebook.
About L.A. Weather by María Amparo Escandón
The 2024 selection for One Book, One County is L.A. Weather by María Amparo Escandón. Published in 2022, L.A. Weather is a New York Times bestseller that follows the Mexican-American Alvarado family during a year in Los Angeles “as they wrestle with impending evacuations, secrets, deception, and betrayal, and their toughest decision yet: whether to stick together or burn it all down.”
María Amparo Escandón is a New York Times best-selling bilingual author (English/Spanish). Her novel, L.A. Weather, is a Reese’s Book Club pick and the winner of the Fiction Award at the International Latino Book Awards, 2022. Her first novel Esperanza’s Box of Saints, (Santitos in Spanish) has been the number one best seller in the Los Angeles Times Best Sellers List, it has 21 foreign editions and is read in over 86 countries. Her second novel is González & Daughter Trucking Co. (Transportes González e Hija, S.A. in Spanish.) María has been an L.A. resident for forty years.
AGE GROUP: | Adults |
EVENT TYPE: | History, Society, & Culture | Entertainment | Education & Literacy | Books, Poetry, & Writing | Arts, Crafts, & Hobbies |
TAGS: | One Book One County |
Willowbrook Library occupies a very special place in the history of the County of Los Angeles Public Library. The Los Angeles County Free Library, as it was then called, was founded September 5, 1912.
On Christmas Eve Day, 1912, the County Librarian received a petition from the residents of the Willowbrook Community, requesting that Willowbrook have the first County branch library. This petition was followed up with a long distance call from Mrs. Belle Jenks offering her services and her home for the purpose.
Both offers were accepted and on April 23, 1913, Willowbrook opened as the first branch library of the Los Angeles County Public Library with an initial shipment of 50 books. The library was open for 2 days in April 1913 and circulated 18 books.
In July 1919, the library was moved to a room in the Post Office at rental of $20.00 a month (later reduced during the Depression to $15.00 a month).
In 1950, a library was built on El Segundo Boulevard but was damaged by fire during the 1965 Watts riots. Rebuilt with community donations and dedicated in June 1966, Willowbrook Library served the community at the El Segundo location until the library was relocated to the Kenneth Hahn Plaza in 1987.
On July 28, 2018, Willowbrook Library opened to the public at its new location: 11737 Wilmington Ave, Los Angeles, 90059.
