Sweet Juniper is a blog that I subscribe to, but often don’t get around to reading. The entries–written by Jim and Wood, parents of two small kids in Detroit–are often more like long and thoughtful essays than your typical short blog post (like the one you are reading now), and when I’m zipping through library blogs, I’m often not in the mood to really give these posts the attention they deserve. Perhaps I need a separate feed reader for blogs like this.

Photo by Sweet Juniper’s “jdg.”

I’m happy that when I came to today’s post by Jim, I, Scrapper, I was in the mood to read. It’s about exploring abandonded schools and saving a small amount of what can be saved. The photos from the school library are powerful enough, but the story is of even more pathetic, criminal neglect than the photo can show. Here’s a small excerpt:

Just a few weeks before this trespass, a principal at an operating school in this same district sent home a letter with her students pleading for their parents to sent toilet paper and light bulbs to school with their children. The school I’m in was closed so recently that only now are the smoke detectors running low on batteries. The devices are chirping birds in the hallways and classrooms, with songs like cooling embers.