Jen Robinson's Book Page: Children's Literacy Round-Up: Feb. 10

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Children's Literacy Round-Up: Feb. 10

February 10, 2006

This post introduces a new, regular feature of this website, the Children's Literacy Round-Up. Each round-up will highlight several recent news articles about community efforts for children's literacy.

The February 7th Burlington Free Press has an opinion piece supportive of the Waterbury, Vermont-based Children's Literacy Foundation (CLiF). The article describes a recent CLiF event designed to bring together Burlington's Somali Bantu community for a day of reading, story-telling and music. The article also strongly encourages the community to support CLiF, arguing that the "price of a few books is money well spent." You can visit the Children's Literacy Foundation website, where they have some statistics on children's literacy, as well as a booklist (in PDF) of over 700 recommended titles for children from birth to age 12.
A press release on February 8th announced that First Book just received more than $500,000 from Borders Group and its customers, thanks to a holiday donation drive. First Book is a national nonprofit organization that gives children in need the opportunity to read and own their first new books. I previously wrote about First Book here. Think of how many books they can give to kids with this donation!
The February 9th News-Review of Roseburg, Oregon has an article today describing Roseburg's fifth annual Celebration of Reading. This is a two-week long series of events ranging from a reading fair to author readings to plays to what sounds like the most fun to me, the Battle of the Books. The latter is a contest, held in two age ranges, in which contestants will be quizzed on their knowledge of particular books (where the lists of included books were distributed last fall). Winners will get prizes, and the battle is apparently a community hit. It's almost enough to make we wish I lived in Roseburg (except that it's been sunny with highs in the 70s all week here in San Jose). But check out the article. I found the sheer number of events included in the Celebration of Reading inspirational.

Every week there are many news stories and announcements about community literacy efforts. The above three are stories that particularly caught my eye. I hope that you find them interesting. Thanks for Reading!! -- Jen

Posted at 01:33 PM in Literacy | Permalink | Comments (1)

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The February 7th Burlington Free Press has an opinion piece supportive of the Waterbury, Vermont-based Children's Literacy Foundation (CLiF). The article describes a recent CLiF event designed to bring together Burlington's Somali Bantu community for a day of reading, story-telling and music. The article also strongly encourages the community to support CLiF, arguing that the "price of a few books is money well spent." You can visit the Children's Literacy Foundation website, where they have some statistics on children's literacy, as well as a booklist (in PDF) of over 700 recommended titles for children from birth to age 12.
A press release on February 8th announced that First Book just received more than $500,000 from Borders Group and its customers, thanks to a holiday donation drive. First Book is a national nonprofit organization that gives children in need the opportunity to read and own their first new books. I previously wrote about First Book here. Think of how many books they can give to kids with this donation!
The February 9th News-Review of Roseburg, Oregon has an article today describing Roseburg's fifth annual Celebration of Reading. This is a two-week long series of events ranging from a reading fair to author readings to plays to what sounds like the most fun to me, the Battle of the Books. The latter is a contest, held in two age ranges, in which contestants will be quizzed on their knowledge of particular books (where the lists of included books were distributed last fall). Winners will get prizes, and the battle is apparently a community hit. It's almost enough to make we wish I lived in Roseburg (except that it's been sunny with highs in the 70s all week here in San Jose). But check out the article. I found the sheer number of events included in the Celebration of Reading inspirational.