Mayor Engages Kids With Tale of Triumph and Creations of Peace

As part of the month-long One City, One Book program celebrating the World War II biography Unbroken, Mayor Denis Weber participated in the program's children's event at the Agoura Hills Library Wednesday with a story-reading and craft session.

Weber read the WW II-themed book Baseball Saved Us by Ken Mochizuki, about young boys in a Japanese internment camp who formed a baseball team, to an engaged audience.

"I tried to teach them that, like Louis Zamperini, they had to forgive and learn to live with others and try to understand how God wants us to live with one another without hate and that we have to sometimes place ourselves in other people shoes in order to understand what they are like and what issues they may be facing," Weber said.

Following the reading, everyone received origami lessons to create their own paper cranes, a Japanese symbol of peace.

As a gesture of goodwill, Agoura Hills children will make 1000 paper cranes which will be sent to the Children's Peace Monument in Hiroshima, Japan.

"I love doing things like this in the city, whether it’s walking to school with them, reading to them, doing a mayor for a day, etc," said Weber."It all is so meaningful for me to share our various experiences with these wonderful, innocent children."

Kids are invited to drop by after school on Tuesdays to continue the project
until there are 1000. So far 284 have been made.

For more information, contact the library at 818-889-2278.