Margie and Mark Buchbinder – he moved here as a child – have lived in Miami for many years. They have three daughters, three “fabulous” sons-in-law, six grandchildren, one grandchild-in-law, and a great-grandson. Longtime champions of promoting educational opportunities for children and youth, in 2003 they established the I Have a Dream Overtown initiative, which followed two groups of children from kindergarten through high school, providing them with inspiration, enrichment, mentoring, and support as they went on to college and careers.
When did you first hear about Miami Book Fair?
Margie: Very early on.
Mark: I think it was the very first year. It was something we immediately knew we wanted to support and participate in.
What does Book Fair mean to Miami?
Mark: That’s probably a 10-part question. [laughs] I moved here in 1954 and I’ve seen the county go through so many different transformations since then; every 15 years or so it reinvents itself. I spent a lot of time downtown when I was a kid, and to me it’s always been the center of activity in the city. Then it started to deteriorate, but with the library and HistoryMiami Museum and other things coming to the area, it started to regenerate. And when Book Fair, Miami Film Festival, and the other museums started to establish themselves there – along with the growth of Miami Dade College – that’s when downtown started becoming the cultural destination that it is today.
Personally, we’ve always been readers – Margie was a media specialist at an elementary school – and our walls are filled with books. So supporting something where books and authors can be celebrated, and where people can learn different things, is a wonderful thing to do. As a communitywide project the Fair certainly brings people downtown every November, but it’s really a yearlong thing, because you bring authors to Miami all the time.
Margie: For me, knowing that I can go and hear so many authors is wonderful; I just love that.
Mark: We definitely brought our Dreamers to the Fair, many times.
What are some of your favorite FOTF benefits?
Margie: Really, it’s all the authors and hearing them talk about their books – that’s fabulous.
Do you usually Book Fair together to attend the same sessions, split up to see authors separately, or a little bit of both?
Mark: I would say it’s a little bit of both.
Margie: But for the most part we’re together.
Mark: We don’t have to sit next to each other every time. [laughs]
What’s an MBF moment or experience that really stands out for each of you?
Mark: One thing I really enjoyed was when Harry Belafonte came to speak – remember that?
Margie: Yes.
Mark: Marlon Hill introduced him. Over the years we’d seen him in concert, but at that point he was getting older and wasn’t making a lot of public appearances. It was a moment that I’ll always remember.
Margie: I absolutely agree with that, but I’m also a huge Dave Barry fan, and not just because he makes me laugh all the time but because his son went to my school. I’ve known him for a good number of years and it’s always a pleasure to see him at the Fair.
Mark: And thankfully he never satirized you in his column.
Margie: Yes! Fortunately he never did.
Tell me about the last great book you read.
Solito by Javier Zamora. It’s a memoir of his journey from El Salvador to the United States as an unaccompanied 9-year-old. It is so personal and so appropriate for what’s happening today that I haven’t ever taken it off my night stand. I think it’s a book that everybody should read. More recently, and this is a shameless plug, is a book called King’s Corner –
Margie: K-I-N-G apostrophe s –
Mark: – that was written by a young author named Easy Jack Portman, who happens to be our grandson.
Margie: Published on the very day he graduated high school.
Oh, wow – that’s amazing!
Margie: We are so proud.
Mark: Of course it’s the best book we’ve ever read. [both laugh]
Well, it wouldn’t have been the same as seeing your grandson do a reading, but I’m sure you must have seen someone at last year’s Fair that you really enjoyed.
Mark: Maya Wiley and Eddie Glaude Jr. We watched them all the time on MSNBC.
Margie: We’re big fans.
You’re on a monthlong sabbatical on a deserted island, just you and your thoughts. What’s the one book you’d be sure to bring with you and why?
Margie: It would be King’s Corner by Easy Jack Portman! [all laugh]
Mark: Probably an atlas, so I could figure out where I was.
Interview by Elisa Chemayne Agostinho; responses have been edited for space and clarity.
