Tag Archives: Literacy

Not Just About Books

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Updated (9.30.11): “Sunday Hours at MLK Library Restored at Last Minute” (DCist)

From “Downtown library shutting its doors on Sundays” in this past Sunday’s Post:

This Sunday, parents read picture books aloud in the children’s room, teens lined up to use a mini-recording studio, and anxious Internet seekers checked a waiting list for computer access that was maxed out at 50 names.

It was a busy scene but, for many, a sad one: It marked the end of Sunday hours at the District?s main library. MLK was the last branch in the city, and one of the last libraries in the region, to stay open on a day when so much is closed. Continuing budget cuts mean an end to this Sunday refuge for families, teens and the homeless. Continue reading →

We Will Go Farther

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The people rest on land and weather, on time and the changing winds.
The people have come far and can look back and say,
‘We will go farther yet.’ […]

The people, yes.
The people will live on.
The learning and blundering people will live on.
They will be tricked and sold and again sold
And go back to the nourishing earth for rootholds,
The people so peculiar in renewal and comeback,
You can’t laugh off their capacity to take it.
The mammoth rests between his cyclonic dramas. […]

In the darkness with a great bundle of grief
the people march.
In the night, and overhead a shovel of stars for keeps, the people march:
‘Where to? what next?’

— Carl Sandburg, The People, Yes, 1936

Pictures for the Day

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Let’s catch a glimpse into this past summer at … The Reading Connection, which opens up the world of books to at-risk families by bringing literacy services and programs into emergency shelters, domestic violence safe houses, long-term shelters, and transitional housing.

TRC’s We Are Readers aims to conquer “summer slump,” the well documented phenomenon wherein low-income children lose as much as 2.6 months of reading skill over the summer. High school soccer players, a zookeeper from the Smithsonian’s National Zoo, author Mary Quattlebaum, firefighters, a chef and police officers all visited during the summer and read aloud with the kids.

The awesome results? 46 children read a total of 13,775 minutes, or about 300 minutes per child. Check it out!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Like Magic

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When you are young so many things are difficult to believe, and yet the dullest people will tell you that they are true — such things, for instance, as that the earth goes round the sun, and that it is not flat but round. But the things that seem really likely, like fairy-tales and magic, are, so say the grown-ups, not true at all. Yet they are so easy to believe, especially when you see them happening.

— English children’s author E. Nesbit, born today in 1858

The Quality of the Day

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We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake us in our soundest sleep. I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavor. It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, which morally we can do. To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts. […]

I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear, nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life.

— Walden by Henry David Thoreau; first published today in 1854.

What Is Rare

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One writes out of one thing only — one’s own experience. Everything depends on how relentlessly one forces from this experience the last drop, sweet or bitter, it can possibly give. This is the only real concern of the artist, to recreate out of the disorder of life that order which is art.

(Autobiographical Notes, 1952)

Words like “freedom,” “justice,” “democracy” are not common concepts; on the contrary, they are rare. People are not born knowing what these are. It takes enormous and, above all, individual effort to arrive at the respect for other people that these words imply.

(“The Crusade of Indignation,” 1956)

— American novelist & essayist James Baldwin; born today in 1924

 

Never Close

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The New York Times and The Nonprofit Quarterly are relaying an uplifting tale from the West Coast:

NPQ: New book shelves and a technology center of the San Jose, CA, Seven Trees library are ready for business. But the city of San Jose doesn’t have the money to pay for librarians, so the brand new center is shut down. But thanks to a group of volunteers, residents will still have books for their summer reading.

The Friends of Seven Trees has set up an informal book loan operation right next to the closed library. The volunteer group organizes donated books, and residents can take them home.

NYT: Instead of just selling the donated books to raise money, as Friends groups usually do, the Friends of Seven Trees Library also decided to set up an informal book-loan operation.

Now Ms. [Wilma] Hashii, a retired library clerk, keeps a mental list of her readers’ needs as she sorts donations. A man with white hair and thick glasses says he is on the lookout for large-print books. Mothers come to read with their children on the one folding chair in the little space, so Ms. Hashii looks for more picture books. A Spanish-speaking woman is teaching herself to read and has asked for easy Spanish books.

“It’s something the community really seems to be taking to,” Ms. Hashii said.

A community without a nearby library seems difficult to comprehend — which might explain why so many volunteers have stepped up to preserve Seven Trees’ service. And at this stage, no one can say for sure whether the organization will ever return to provide that service again. But either way, community volunteers’ repossession of the library’s work is both uplifting and fascinating. Is it a sign that a supply of books is an indispensable community resource? Were this library (or any organization) not to re-open, would this local and volunteer-driven model be something new to consider? Not for all cases, but for some?

7 Questions – Juliana Ratner (Free Minds Book Club)

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Welcome to “7 Questions” … Juliana Ratner, Program Director of Free Minds Book Club & Writing Workshop. The club meets weekly at the DC Jail, exploring literature and creative writing and empowering young inmates to transform their lives. Learn more!

1. What was your most interesting recent project, initiative, partnership, or event?

Every day is an interesting project with this job! On Friday, however, we hosted guest writer Michael Mattocks, co-author of the memoir Unlikely Brothers, in book club. That day book club met on the unit itself, where the acoustics are bad and it’s hard to hear, and all the book club members were so focused and attentive. Michael talked about his journey from drug dealing and incarceration to being an involved and responsible father of five boys, and what writing a book had taught him — and they were full of questions and eager to read their own writing aloud. Afterwards Michael said that it had been one of the most powerful moments of his life, to have the opportunity to share his story with them, and to hear their poetry.

2. What else are you up to?

We’re in the process of producing a literary journal of our member’s work. We do a book every year, but this year we’re taking it to the next level. The journal has an editorial board of four Free Minds members, three of whom are in prison and one of whom is home. They have been in charge of every aspect of the book, from selecting the themes for each section to doing the final pick of poems, and it has been amazing to watch. They are committed and insightful editors and so deeply pleased to be able to give back in a positive way, especially if it can influence other people’s lives and choices.

Continue reading →

Fathers’ Day

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From NPR Weekend Edition, June 18, 2011:

When Alice Ozma was in the fourth grade, her family was going through a rough patch. Her parents had just split up, and her older sister had recently left for college. Ozma was suddenly spending a lot more time alone with her dad, Jim Brozina, an elementary school librarian. So Ozma and her father made a pledge: to read together every single night for 100 days.

But after 100 days, they just kept going. Their streak ultimately lasted 3,218 days — spanning from Ozma’s fourth-grade year to her first day of college. […] Reading together was one thing they knew they could depend on. As Ozma got older, it got harder to keep it up, but the pair persisted — even on the night of Ozma’s prom.

From epic novels to fairy tales, books have a strange ability to bind two people together. You know that flash of excitement when you realize that a new acquaintance shares a favorite author or series? That giddy realization that you both “speak” the same language, that you have numerous topics of conversation? It’s a great feeling, that closeness. And in the case of Ozma and her father, they share not one book or one writer, but a whole library.

Ozma’s website, The Reading Promise, offers a starter book list to initiate your own “Reading Streak.” And I recommend the list in part because it features Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, which I vividly remember reading with my own father when I was about seven or eight. In his edition, the picture of the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come was deeply creepy, but I’ll always be glad that I first experienced that story with him. I also recognized quite a few other books on Ozma’s list: Maniac Magee from fifth grade language arts, Sherlock Holmes from middle school science (really!), and Macebth from sophomore English. Certain books can be indelibly linked to certain moments in life — and seeing them is like stumbling on a memory. And when that memory is shared with a loved one, all the better.

In sum, do check out the complete story on NPR and celebrate this week after Fathers’ Day with a quick read — with a parent, child, or friend. Also: learn more about Catalogue non-profits who are working to spread literacy to each and every family in our region. Let’s make sure that everyone has the chance to experience what Ozma and her father did.

In The News … [Updated!]

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BREAKING NEWS!

The Catalogue for Philanthropy Class of 2011-2012 has been selected! Check out our 70 new and re-listed charities, as well as those who have been “re-certified” to remain on the web. (Several of whom have grown so much in the past few years that their budget renders them too large for the print catalogue!) Check them out right here. Congratulations!

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Welcome to Wednesday! Here comes a sample of non-profit news …

Reactions to the demise of the Kansas Arts Commission — As you likely have read, Gov. Sam Brownback (R-Kansas) vetoed funding for the Kansas Arts Commission over Memorial Days weekend. An override was unsuccessful. But Create Equity does find something of a silver lining: “this controversy has revealed genuine, broad-based public support for funding the arts … the dogfight over the Arts Commission was the top story on the Topeka Capital-Journal’s website. I don’t mean it was on the front page, I mean it was the #1 story in all of Kansas.” In other words, arts have real political power. Maybe more than imagined.

The Giving Pledge Goes Hollywood — Inspired by Bill & Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett, “Laurence Fishburne, Kim Kardashian, Richard Gere, Ricky Martin, and Justin Bieber, have joined dozens of other entertainers and sports figures … to use their fame to promote their favorite charities and encourage their fans to donate time and money.” While celebrities directing their star power towards charitable causes certainly deserves acclaim, will interest in the cause or the celebrity be the driving force behind donations from fans? Interesting discussion topic …

Continue reading →