Bibliobandido is a public art and literacy movement created by artist Marisa Morán Jahn with the Library Club of El Pital, a rural community in Honduras that centers around ‘Bibliobandido’ (’story eater’), a masked bandit that eats stories and playfully pesters little kids to nourish him with stories they’ve written. As Bibliobandido’s fame eventually rivaled that of Santa Claus, the project grew over a decade to encompass tens of thousands of youth across 19 participating Honduran communities.
Bibliobandido workshops also spread to Central and North America, taking root in institutions ranging from the Seattle Public Library, Pérez Art Museum Miami, Studio Museum in Harlem, Sugar Hill Museum of Art and Storytelling, Queens Museum, and additional universities, festivals, schools, and museums where storytelling is urgent. In 2015, the Seattle Public Library adopted Bibliobandido as the mascot of their digital media programs and provide trainings to librarians on how to adapt the legend for their own communities.
