The Indiana Free Library (IFL) has collaborated with two seventh grade English teachers at the Indiana Area Junior High School, Jennifer Beer and Alicia Haggerty, in a project through which IFL gave each student the opportunity to receive a free book titled Halley and the Mystery of the Lost Girls, written by Pittsburgh author Susy Robison.
The project is supported by funding that IFL received through Pennsylvania’s Youth-led Humanities program.
Robison’s YA fiction novel explores such topics as human trafficking, poverty, and homelessness. All students, regardless of whether they took the book, have been invited to meet the author at the library on February 26, 2025 at 6:00 p.m. where she will discuss her work with the homeless and previously trafficked population in Pittsburgh over the past 20 years and share how she came to write the book..
Coincidentally, the books were first distributed around the same time that junior high school students attended an assembly by the Asservo Projet, whose mission is “to combat global human trafficking, child exploitation and sexual predators, support the recovery of victims, and aid in the imprisonment of perpetrators.”
The goal of the assembly was to increase awareness about trafficking and exploitation, including how to recognize the signs. It also offered tips on how to protect oneself and prevent it from happening in the first place.
Jacque Benhart, YA Librarian at IFL hopes Wednesday’s program is well attended. “We hope that the community of young adults and everyone else who believes in the arts and how one person's story can uplift, educate and reveal the possibilities will attend.”