Storytime w/ Margaret Graf

Outer Sunset author Margaret Graf reads from her newest storybook The Adventures of Rob Raven, the story of an Ocean Beach raven and the challenges of climate change.

The Adventures of Rob Raven, Climate Change By Wing & Tail, is solely the product of the author’s imagination. It tells the story of an elderly common raven as he despairs of coping with his current lifestyle and the daily increasing struggles with the impact of climate changes in a metropolitan city on his health, habitat and food supply. He and his partner make the difficult decision that he should venture off on his own seeking a liveable and safe environment in which they might spend their senior years in some comfort. The challenges of moving several miles, viewing further impacts of climate change through weather, fires and careless human destruction of the natural order, are not lost on him during his journey. He locates a potentially suitable new home, gathering more birds on his way with the same plight and seeking a similar relief. Once in his new home, he sends for his partner and settles down only to find that all is not yet perfect, as new human and predator challenges arise impacting the small group. Through his cleverness, ability to assimilate and organize his fellow birds and the animals they live with, he adapts and leads the Ocean Beach band of survivors to a peaceable co-existence, while making a human friend and sharing a common bond of loss and hope.

Margaret Graf founded SF Senior Power in the Outer Sunset to give older adults more tools to empower themselves. From personal experience, she knows that older adults do not always have the support or resources to care for their own emotional and physical needs, and her organization has responded by providing events, education, and community. She is also a retired registered nurse and lawyer, and now an advocate at the neighborhood and city level for the needs of older people in SF.