About

“Tree House Books means a good place to read books and get them. It means listen and silence. It is a world of imagination, and a world that you can be yourself in, and read all different kinds of books.”

—Nyah, age 11

What’s Tree House?

Tree House Books is a non-profit organization on a mission: grow and sustain a community of readers, writers, and thinkers in North Central Philadelphia. Packed with books and homemade art, Tree House is an after-school meeting spot for local children to explore learning in fun, creative ways that encourage a lifelong relationship with education, reading, and each other. Plus, in the process, our kids get to know their own creative potential, the value of their creations, and that they all have a place as members in the community. We offer homework help, publish our own magazine, and host a variety of community events.

(See a list of our programs.)

The Tree House atmosphere is warm and welcoming, brimming with kid-driven energy and creative ideas in constant supply. We hope to extend our branches from Susquehanna Avenue to all of our neighbors throughout North Central Philadelphia. Tree House emphasizes and embodies the strength we have as members of a community. We encourage the kids to look up and greet neighbors while walking, read stories aloud, garden together, ask for help when they need it, help others when they need it, and work to change what they want to be different.

“Once you learn to read, you will be forever free.”

—Frederick Douglass

History

Art and writing projects here often take interesting and unexpected turns, just like the creation of Tree House itself!

The seeds of what we now know as Tree House Books were planted in 2004 when a local Community Development Corporation commissioned a study to revitalize the commercial corridor on Susquehanna Avenue. After a small group of community members decided to make one building into a used bookstore, they quickly realized that this vision needed to widen to better meet the needs of the neighborhood.

Tree House Books shifted from being merely a place to buy books to a place where life with books is always happening. Tree House became many new things: a bookstore, a writing workshop, an open-mic venue, a leadership program, a homework support center, a meeting place, and a theater.

This growing and stretching was hidden inside Tree House from the very beginning. Our location at 1430 W. Susquehanna—the site of an upholstery shop about one hundred years earlier—was made for surprising growth. During the years when the building sat empty and no one walked its floors, a tree grew in the middle of the main room. This tree was removed during renovation—but remembered in our name and in our insistence that our community will grow.

“Down there under Tree House

Boxes, bookshelves and chairs

Sit collecting dust, surrounded by musty, dusty, dirty walls.

Unopened cans of paint waiting to be used

Down there, they rest until someone comes to get them.”

—Meajah, age 8

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