(From left to right.) North Middletown Principal Greg Ramey, Congressman Ben Chandler, Press Secretary Jennifer Krimm, Kate Fergusson, Field Representative Loren “Squirrel” Carl, Bourbon County Judge-Executive Donnie Foley. Congressman Chandler helping North Middletown students select books. Congressman Chandler reading at West Irvine Elementary School.
Greetings! This is Kate Fergusson, RIF government relations and community outreach coordinator, and I want to share with you my adventures in the beautiful state of Kentucky last week for three RIF Congressional Reading Celebrations with Congressman Ben Chandler. This was our first trip to the Bluegrass State, and RIF staffer Pati Carrada and I were in awe of the gorgeous winding roads of central Kentucky that offered amazing views of horse farms and the lush green countryside.
The first stop for Congressman Chandler, a long-time champion of literacy in Kentucky, was West Irvine Elementary School in Irvine, Ky. RIF Volunteer of the Year Award winner Elke Davis and coordinator Stacye Woolery managed to impress us with the creative ‘pirate themed’ book distribution. In the gym was a giant brown cardboard “sunken ship” with books inside as the “hidden treasure.” After reading aloud to a group of students, the congressman toured the school. Arrrrr!
The following day, in the beautiful town of Paris, Ky., North Middletown Elementary School conducted its RIF literacy celebration with the theme “Everyone Has a Story.” After enjoying storytelling performances in the library, Congressman Chandler read Farmers’ Market by local author Paul Brett Johnson to a class of 2nd graders and helped them with their book selection.
(From left to right.) Congressman Chandler and West Irvine Principal Tonya D. Isaacs. Southern Elementary School Librarian Jillian Anderson and Congressman Chandler.
The final literacy celebration was in Georgetown, Ky. at Southern Elementary School. It kicked off with an assembly in the gym that included Congressman Chandler; a professional storyteller; and the Superintendent of Scott County Schools, Patricia Putty. After greeting the assembly of 700 children and speaking about the importance of reading, the Congressman read aloud to a 1st grade classroom. Kudos to RIF coordinator and librarian of Southern Elementary, Jillian Anderson, for organizing such an impressive book distribution, after only her first year as RIF coordinator!
Time spent reading with children during these events were captured and logged on RIF’s Read for Change website, our RIF campaign tied to President Obama’s United We Serve initiative.
Thank you to all RIF coordinators involved in making these literacy celebrations a success! Another special thank you to Congressman Ben Chandler, Press Secretary Jennifer Krimm, and Field Representative Loren “Squirrel” Carl for participating in these events and for being such strong supporters of children’s literacy!
For our third RIF Program of the Month for August we applaud Escuela de la Comunidad Celso Gonzalez in Loiza, P.R., which serves 630 children in kindergarten and elementary school. For nine years, Zulma Rivera-Cordova has been the dedicated RIF coordinator, building the quality of the RIF program and reaching out to the local community for financial and operational support. Despite difficult economic times, she raised the local funds needed to continue the RIF program for yet another year. Prior to a book distribution, kindergarten students participate in an audio visual read-aloud, created by 3rd grade students and the librarian. RIF book distributions include books that promote Puerto Rican culture, for the children to easily identify with, as well books in English and Spanish, which Rivera-Cordova believes are important to the children maximizing their bilingual abilities.
The rich texture of the illustration makes me think of thick carpet; what images or materials come to your mind?
Happy reading!
Carol
Cover Story is a feature every Monday on Rasco From RIF where I share with you the “face” of a book that has caught my eye or that readers have submitted. Cover Story does not discuss the content of the book. I hope you will share your favorite “cover story” with me now and then!
As many of you know, during July and August, Macy’s has been hosting the Book A Brighter Future™ in-store campaign to benefit RIF. This great campaign has a huge impact on RIF and is very easy to support–just visit your local Macy’s this weekend and give $3 to get a $10 off coupon for your next in-store purchase of $50 or more. This is the last weekend of the 2009 campaign, and we need everyone’s support!
RIF is also running a special sweepstakes during the campaign. Tell three friends about the campaign through the Tell-A-Friend feature on www.bookabrighterfuture.com and you will be entered to win a $1,000 gift card for Macy’s from RIF!
This year, we’ve had all kinds of supporters rally around the campaign. A big thank you to the Macy’s associates, the women of Kappa Kappa Gamma, RIF staff and the many RIF volunteers who have done such an outstanding job spreading the word about the campaign. Stay tuned in September to see just how much your support has raised for RIF!
(From left to right.) Students at Fischer Elementary School (front), Harry Shearer, a teacher at Fischer Elementary School, and Gil McGregor. A student writing his name in his new RIF book.
In support of United We Serve, RIF teamed up with Communities in Schools New Orleans (CIS) and National PTA to launch ‘United We Read,’ an initiative featuring a week-long book distribution. Held in New Orleans, 2,500 children from the Algiers Charter School District received new, free books along with United We Read backpacks that included parent and family resources from PTA, RIF, and CIS. The book distribution was kicked off with a special event held at Fischer Elementary School featuring celebrity guest readers: actor/comedian Harry Shearer and New Orleans Hornets broadcaster Gil McGregor. Also joining this unique event were volunteers from Macy’s who presented the school with a 50-title Multicultural Book Collection.
The success of this event was evident from the many smiles, hugs, and cheers after the kids received their books and participated in read-alouds of the newly released children’s book, Goodnight NOLA. The power of partnership also cannot be overlooked. RIF, PTA, and CIS worked together quickly and seamlessly, sharing ideas, financial resources, and staff and volunteers to bring the love of reading to America’s children!
We are gearing up for the final weekend of the Book A Brighter Future campaign with Macy’s. As we do that, I want to send a special thank you to the women of Kappa Kappa Gamma for helping to support RIF and this campaign. In particular, thank you to the alumnae in Denver, Colo.; Washington, D.C./Suburban Maryland, Richmond, Va.; and Atlanta, Ga., who have organized group shopping outings at their local Macy’s stores. They have shopped, bought RIF coupons, thanked the store managers, and as the pictures show, had lots of fun while doing so!
Denver Kappa alumnae with Macy’s manager, Rita Spreeman (center), at the store in Park Meadows Mall.
The Kapital Kappas pause from their shopping at the Macy’s at Metro Center in downtown Washington, D.C.
Help RIF Book A Brighter Future by visiting a Macy’s store this weekend and asking your friends and family to do the same!
While much will be eloquently written about the life and work of Senator Ted Kennedy, I will always treasure more than any memory of him the day we went together to read at an elementary school in Washington, DC. It was his weekly visit with his young reading buddy. Each sitting in a small chair, reading side by side, laughing, sharing, empowering that young boy to believe in himself. They were alone together in a room of many.
Thank you, sir, for empowering people, often one by one.
Julie Jahner of North Dakota is a 20-year educator and has served as the RIF coordinator for the Community Action Head Start program in Dickinson since 2005. The program serves 152 preschoolers whose ages range from 3 to 6 years old. All of the children are considered “at risk” either because of their social economic status or because of their diagnosed disability.
In the summer of 2007, Julie traveled to Washington, D.C., to accept a RIF Program Excellence Honor award from RIF National; Julie always thanks the Kiwanis Club for their strong support of the RIF program. In an ambassadors’ blog entry earlier this year, Julie wrote:
“We have just completed our ordering of books for another grant year and have never gone through such an easy process. We bought RIF Ready Packs… We chose the age group and the interest areas and the titles just popped up! It also added everything up for us and we submitted the order right away!! When we received the books, we were just so happy to see the many titles involved and they were definitely of interest to the children we serve.”
Kids choosing books at a Community Action Head Start RIF book distribution.
I can’t end this account without including the closing line from Julie’s blog entry in March:
“We’ve had windchill temperatures well below zero these last four days so I am so looking forward to warm weather and enjoying books outdoors. Unfortunately, I think I’ll be waiting a while…”
Wow! But warm weather did arrive and they held their first distribution in April as seen here; it was a family literacy night with supper served followed by storytime, songs, and crafts…closing of course with book selection time!
Stephanie Tabor is the ambassador for Maryland. She has been teaching for the past 13 years at Title I schools in Anne Arundel County and is currently a Title I reading teacher at Tyler Heights Elementary School in Annapolis where she has also led the RIF program for five years. Stephanie has indicated that when she first started with RIF at Tyler Heights the students asked primarily for joke books, sports books, and books with cartoon characters. She hastens to add that while she has no problem with students reading those books she is proud of the more diverse reading menu found now among the students. She believes the Accelerated Reader program initiated by the media specialist has created the change, and now students are asking for books they can own that are the same or that mirror their Accelerated Reader books. It may take longer, but Stephanie is proud of the skill her students have developed in book selection!
The Kentucky ambassador is Raymond Fehr who has been in the Jefferson County Public Schools in Louisville since fall 1983. He has served as a 1st-grade teacher, a Reading Recovery teacher, the school-based technology teacher, district-wide technology instructor, an elementary principal, and a Title I specialist. Currently he oversees the “free tutoring” program through No Child Left Behind and is the RIF coordinator for the district’s 36-site program. Raymond loves pop-up books and has been known to decorate his home Christmas tree with pop-up books from his personal collection. Raymond notes he likes arranging author visits and particularly enjoyed presenting Jim Aylesworth to the students.
Our sincere thanks to all our ambassadors who are not only serving the children and families of their own communities, but also assisting in promoting RIF statewide.
I cannot truthfully attest the cover caught my attention like many I feature, but children in two bookstores I was visiting where this book was at their eye level loved the “bushes shaped like birds and a butterfly” and that the red-haired boy could sit on top of a bush. They were eager to turn the pages and “learn the story.” Interestingly, I have learned this book was inspired by The High Line in New York, a 1.45 mile-long elevated rail structure on Manhattan’s West Side which was built in the 1930s to remove dangerous trains from Manhattan’s streets but has not been in use for a number of years and was recently restored as a park. Read about how Peter Brown was inspired by The High Line.
Happy reading!
Carol
Cover Story is a feature every Monday on Rasco From RIF where I share with you the “face” of a book that has caught my eye or that readers have submitted. Cover Story does not discuss the content of the book. I hope you will share your favorite “cover story” with me now and then!
I will soon return from a wonderful vacation visiting areas along the coast of Croatia…it has been a feast of beautiful scenery, rich history, great food and very friendly people. I will be sharing thoughts and images for months to come I am sure. But for starters: I always wander into bookstores while on vacation and within minutes of entering the plaza in Dubrovnik I spotted a bookstore…see above the first two children’s books on which my eyes landed. Then I saw the book titled SAT; I sent that photo to our friends at The College Board to ask about this early childhood prep in Croatian!
In the city of Zadar I had a rather eerie experience as I walked into a bookstore, an experience related to a book I was then reading, but more on that another day. Dave Rosenthal of The Baltimore Sun mentioned in a column this week that he, too, always checks out local bookstores when on vacation…is that something you do as well?
Other Muse Briefs Are you familiar with Libba Bray’s work? If not, you have missed a treat and now you really must watch the book trailer she has made for her soon-to-be-released YA novel GOING BOVINE; yes, she herself is indeed wearing a cow costume and is filmed throughout Manhattan no less! Cow book due on shelves September 22.
Ever have that very special literacy friend for whom you wish there was something extra special you could give as a gift? Take a look at these Double Booked Designs! And speaking of gifts, have you ever perused the blog Cake Wrecks? Another treat you must not miss; and I understand they have a book coming out as well.
Abby (the) Librarian recently asked sister and brother bloggers if we ever wondered what one another’s ”Blog Central” sites look like…and invited us to share photos with our readers and with one another. While I write posts both at the office and at home, I most frequently write at home. My desk with a chair once at home in the U. S. House of Representatives, the view straight ahead out the window (which I pretend is a mountainous forest but is really trees and other plantings covering a retaining wall), and a favorite, inspiring Kandinsky poster…these images create my blogging space at home.
BOOK COVERS
Remember a few weeks ago when I wrote along with many other bloggers about the LIAR cover issue both in its initial shock phase as well as the current resolution? Well, in my opinion a “happy cover issue” is this posting by Laurie Halse Anderson who shared the currently proposed cover for the upcoming British paperback version of CHAINS, a book I featured in a Wednesday WIndow column. While I certainly like the American cover and even noted such, I think this British cover is stunning; take a look at the back cover as well.
In the category of pure INSPIRATION
Today’s Houston Chronicle has an article about Lester struggling to learn to read at age 50. It is a good reminder of the wonderful work done by organizations all across the country with the many adult learners in our communities; showers of gold RIF stars to each of those organizations, to each volunteer and above all, to each learner! Lester’s efforts also inspire me to work even harder with young children to help them find the joy of reading at the earliest age possible.
Happy Reading, have a great week!
Carol
P. S. Remember, only one week left to participate in Macy’s Book a Brighter Future campaign!
As many of you know, during July and August, Macy’s has been hosting the Book A Brighter Future™ in-store campaign to benefit RIF. This great campaign has a huge impact on RIF and is very easy to support–just visit your local Macy’s this weekend and give $3 to get a $10 off coupon for your next in-store purchase of $50 or more. This is the last weekend of the 2009 campaign, and we need everyone’s support!
