Here are two chances to meet and support West Philly-based authors who will be presenting their new books this week.

• Anna Badkhen, a journalist, world traveler and writer, is inviting neighbors to the Penn Book Center (34th and Sansom) on Tuesday, Aug. 4 for the launch of her new book, Walking with Abel. Named a top summer reading pick by the Los Angeles Times, Playboy and Mental Floss, the book takes readers on a journey with a family of Fulani nomads, as they embark on their annual migration across the African savanna. Badkhen spent much of 2013 living with the nomads in the Sahel region of Mali in Western Africa (read our earlier post about Badkhen and her book here).

“[Badkhen] mak[es] Fulani culture come alive as she follows the herders’ daily efforts to cope with drought, disease, and death in an often unforgiving landscape…,” reads a review by Library Journal, and Playboy calls the book a “vivid, memorable nonfiction.”  Continue Reading

OK, first thing … You need to carve 30 minutes out of your day and watch the mini-documentary Glen’s Village, a film about a kid who grew up around 52nd and Haverford, was dealing crack by the 9th grade and is now, thanks to the strength of his mother and himself, a student at Penn. (It’s embedded below).

The film takes you through Glen’s childhood growing up with a dad who was, as one person in the film puts it, basically a “drug kingpin.” He was later deported to Jamaica, leaving Glen’s mother to raise him alone. It wasn’t going well as he entered his teens and by ninth grade Glen was regularly skipping school and selling drugs.

But at University City High School he turns it around. As one of the school’s star students, Glen testified before the School Reform Commission as it considered closing the school. UC High’s closure is an important part of the film, as is his work at Sayre High School, where he teaches part time to fulfill his scholarship obligations.  Continue Reading

UPDATE (8/3/2015): A man and a woman were robbed with the use of weapons and physically assaulted on Sunday morning at bus stops in the area.

A 46-year-old woman sustained cuts to her arm and was robbed at around 9:10 a.m. at 48th and Larchwood, according to police. The woman was waiting for a SEPTA bus when she felt a pull on her purse across her shoulder. When she turned around she saw an unknown female with a yellow box cutter in her hands. She swung at the woman and cut her under her left arm, according to a police report. While pulling on the purse she made her way into the passenger side of a black sedan, which police believe was a rental car. The victim also got into the vehicle continuing struggling over her purse. The vehicle pulled away, and the victim was dragged several feet before she was pushed out, according to police. The car fled northbound on S. 51st Street toward Spruce and was lost.

The first suspect is described as a black female, 25-35 years old, 5’5″, 170-180 lbs, wearing a blue or green shirt, jeans and a purple/white scarf. The scarf was recovered on the scene. The vehicle, a 2014 Volkswagen Jetta, an Enterprise rental car, was operated by a heavily built black male, 35-40 years old, according to a police report. Both suspects were still at large as of Monday, Aug. 3, 10 a.m.  Continue Reading