Play. Run. Read. Repeat.

When we talk about summer reading at school I say this to the children, "Read books. Not all the time, not even most of the time. Play, run around, eat ice cream, scrape your knees, ride your bike, fall down, get back up and ride some more. Get sticky from watermelon and popsicles and strawberries. Go to the beach or the pool or both. Dig in the sand, dig in the dirt, find worms, don't eat them. Plant flowers, cut flowers, smell flowers. Chase fireflies. But when you have down time, and we all do, choose a book."

They have so many options: movies and video games, tablets and Iphones, but they also have books. There is time at the end of the day to tuck your scraped and dirty knees under you and lose yourself in a story, one you can hold and read and share.

When there is a choice, choose a book.

Summer Reading Favorites
Blueberries for Sal, McCloskey
Summer, Low
Everyone Can Learn to Ride a Bicycle, Raschka
Time of Wonder, McCloskey
What Do You Do With an Idea?, Yamada
Little Country Town, Southwell
Harry by the Sea, Zion
Beach, Cooper
Tar Beach, Ringgold
Henry Reed, Inc, Brown
Cornelia and the Audacios Escapades of the Somerset Sisters, Blume
From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, Konigsburg
Junonia, Henkes
The Penderwicks: A Summer Tale of Four Sisters, Two Rabbits and a Very Interesting Boy, Birdsall
Seaglass Summer, Banerjee

Kate and Mary Read

It will be the summer of reading. Last summer it was bicycles, riding for hours on end for the first time without the aid of additional wheels (quiet, they are city children, it took a bit longer), and the summer before that, the summer of France, on their first trip to one of my favorite countries. But this year, in what could have been the summer of soccer (although, now wrapped, their enchantment with the World Cup was too fleeting to define an entire summer), it is the summer of reading. It's nothing new, they have always been fond of books and stories but this year their lazy selves are lolling in bed some days until 11:00, waking and reading for hours before dragging themselves downstairs in search of food. They are building forts and finding nooks to house their afternoon habit; dirt and sand covered children crawling into the corners of our home, books in hand, to pick up where they left off that morning.

We have no complaints.

When they were born my cousin gave me a book, a big thick book, called "How to Raise Readers" or something like that. I thought this was genius and planned on reading it cover to cover as soon as I found time. I suspect it is still in the exact place on the shelf where I put it almost ten years ago, having never found the time to read about reading, choosing rather to actually just read. This lackadaisical approach seems to have worked.

We read together every night, the three of us. Last night we finished the first in The Penderwicks series, a book we all loved so much so that the next two books have just been ordered from my favorite used book seller. The girls, on their own, just finished Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, as did I, and we will all write reviews next week for From Left to Write, celebrating the 50th anniversary of this really terrific book. And now they will have their own space, NorthSideFour: Kate and Mary Read, because all this reading begets writing, and I'm most curious as to what they have to say. Nose buried in books, I haven't talked to them in days.

Kate Read the Book. First.

There have been several times when I find that I am completely intrigued in a certain book. Often, I like to share my love of the book with another person. Solving this, I walk around and ask people whether they have read the book or not. The answers people give are quite assorted, but in my opinion the strangest answers are the terrible ones in which the people say that they have seen the movie instead. To my great disappointment, these answers are quite frequent and are from many people. They leave me in total awe at the people that don’t read the book before they watch the move.

    Imagination is a wonderful asset. It gives you the freedom to picture anything in your head as you think it would be, to create a world absolutely different from your won. As you read a book, you can use your imagination to your advantage, making the story’s illustrations up in your mind. However, while watching a movie, you have the whole entire picture right in front of you. With this little to imagine, for me it becomes a boring thing to see. I believe that books exercise one’s brain, and that is very important. To be settled down, reading a book and picturing dozens of people, places and things is a great joy. Books have many wonderful ideas and descriptions to enjoy that movies would never have. -Kate B.

Kate wrote this passage which was published in an arts magazine featuring the work of students on the north side of Chicago. She read it last week at a forum sponsored by StudentsXpress. Her book loving librarian mother was beaming from the audience. 

Who Judged a Book By It's Cover? Me.

"This book wasn't as good as it's cover."

Oh yes, the never ending story of a 8 year old girl who insists on choosing books with shiny covers full of pink, with a title announced in poofy letters and a cover picture which must include a girl in a short skirt, around 10 years old, who appears to be in some sort of quandary. Extra points for crowns and promises of princesses within.

"Did you read the first few pages, or the inside cover, before you checked it out?", although I know that she did not. She is not alone; children want books that appear new, with brightly colored covers, titles that scream at them and pictures that promise girl related drama or bodily functions. Publishers deliver, shelves are stocked with Junie B.Jones and Captain Underpants. And it's not just the third grade, pre-school boys are wild about finding pictures of toilets in books, while the four year old girls refuse to open anything that is not part of the Pinkalicious family of books.

No Henry Huggins, no Frog and Toad, no Lyle, all sadly regulated to the back of the shelf thanks to their simple covers and stories markedly absent of potty sounds and characters who only wear pink clothing. Charlotte's Web, only saved from certain extinction by having been made into a movie more than once, gathers less dust than than Superfudge. Put that pig in a pink gown and sparkly crown and you've got yourself a bestseller.

Don't judge a book by it's cover? Remind me of that next time you see me wine shopping, I'm drawn to labels with good graphics, or ones that look so distant and intriguing I am certain that the wine inside must be wonderful. You'll know me by the husband following close behind, reviewing each choice, and regulating most to the "ally" section of the wine cabinet.

But books? The horror. Generally I don't buy books online. I prefer my local book shop where I can spend hours going over each and every one that interests me, reading the inside cover and making decisions based on content and story, not just the flashy picture on the cover; I will not be fooled by flashy covers. Usually.

This book arrived in the mail, sent to me from the publisher for review purposes. Yuck. The cover was all wrong; it screamed pink and the font was messy. I wasn't going to like it but I had agreed to read it, and so it went into the "need to read" queue. Days later, having found it's way to the top, I read the first page, and then the second. Written in a series of emails, memos, court documents, letters and statutes, it's easy to flip from one page to the next, and difficult to put down. The story unfolds from the documents, each one (save the necessary statutes), written in a very smart, and unique, voice. The characters become real in their own words, not by lecture from the writer.

After years of reminding children to look inside before making a decision, I have, perhaps, learned my own lesson. Sometimes wonderful, thought provoking and smart stories can be hidden behind screaming pink covers, when you just take the time to look inside.

That said, it's still the label on the front of the bottle that gets me, every time.

This post was inspired by the novel The Divorce Papers by Susan Rieger. Young lawyer Sophie unwillingly takes her first divorce case with and entertaining and volatile client in this novel told through correspondence and legal documents. Join From Left to Write on March 18th as we discuss The Divorce Papers. As a member, I received a copy of the book for review purposes.


* If you enjoy reading books written in the epistolary style, I encourage you to read 84, Charing Cross Road, a wonderful way to spend a few hours.

From My Side of the Gate

This post was inspired by the novel Prayers for the Stolen by Jennifer Clement, the story of one girl, her mother and friends, surviving in rural Mexico. It is a choppy story, reflecting the life lived by these women, so far from the Mexico advertised in the United States. Join From Left to Write on February 18th as we discuss Prayers for the Stolen. As a member I received a copy of the book for review purposes.

There were two girls on the other side of the gate who appeared to be about my age. We stood and looked at each other for a few minutes, smiling and waving. My grandmother appeared behind me and suggested that I come back inside, it was time for dinner. Not at all hungry, I wanted to go out and play with these girls. She waved them on but I held firm, I wanted to be on the other side. At five my Spanish was limited to hello, thank you, please, and a few food items. I tried them all, certainly saying something as interesting as "me gusta el taco", the girls giggled, and said something back, which, having no idea what they were saying, made me giggle. Soon enough all three of us were laughing; Mimi went to find the cook.

Every year my grandparents left in mid January. Knowing I wouldn't see them for weeks, I spent the night before they left at their house, helping pack and leaving little notes in their luggage, the black and white patterned Samsonite with the bright orange lining. A week earlier my grandfather had brought them down from the attic so that, even though she took the exact same clothes each year, Mimi could start the packing and organizing required for a month away from home.

Three weeks later Dad and I went to the grocery store for milk, eggs, bacon, bread and these truly sweet sticky buns my grandfather liked, stocking the refrigerator for their return. The next morning we were on a plane, to be greeted four hours later in sunshine by my grandfather, relaxed and tan, driving the old orange Volkswagen thing that I thought was the most exciting car ever made. Dad took over and drove us home, Bopaw in the front seat smoking a cigarette and filling us in on what had happened in the year that we had been away. Mom and I rode in the back, my hair flying, her screams muffled by the roar of the open air car as it raced along the malecon.

Mona was still alive, and still horribly unpleasant. She patrolled the beautiful jardin, never beyond the fence for fear that she would bite someone. Only Paulino went in, to feed her, and take care of the flowers. The roosters next door had not made it to a stockpot yet and were still the very early morning wake up call for the entire block. Julia was making pork roast tonight, in honor of Dad's arrival, and papas fritas for me. The Testerman's were coming tomorrow for dinner, Mimi was having a party for their Kansas City friends on Saturday.

We bounced along the cobblestones and up the steep hills in town, Mom alternating between screeching in terror and joy as we passed her favorite shops: cute pink sandals outside Letty's competing for attention with a burro who wandered into our path. When we rounded the corner and stopped at the end of the road I could smell the papas fritas; Mimi's face inside the gate settled it, I was home, at least for a short time.

One week to sleep in the mosquito netting, to bury myself in the sand at El Dorado, to drink fresh squeezed orange juice every morning and to beg my Dad to carry me back up the hill after a trip down to Bing's for pineapple ice cream. One week to spend with the four people I loved the most in the world, in the place I waited all year to be, Mexico.

And then, at the end, as I knew would happen each year, I said goodbye to my parents and got on a plane with my grandparents for the trip home. Mom and Dad just at the start of their Mexican time, a month of friends and parties and sunburns in front of them, while I was headed to snow and school and heartache, leaving my parents never easy, and my leaving was never easy for Dad. Waking the next morning to the sticky rolls we bought just a week earlier made him closer, even though I knew he was very far away.

My grandmother returned with Julia who talked to the girls for a minute and then turned to Mimi and me. In the end they allowed me outside, but only for a few minutes, long enough to take a picture and let me run to the end of the street and back. At five I had not yet learned that I wasn't supposed to be friends with the people who stood on the other side of the gate.

On My Shelf, Olive Kitteridge

The majority of what I read is dictated by outside sources. This in no way slows my need to buy books but they accumulate in stacks around our apartment, waiting patiently to be read. My husband cringes with every single addition, so certain that we are sinking into the frozen Chicago tundra below.

First on the list, books my girls read in class, to better understand what they are studying, enabling me to discuss the details of Peak's relationship with his father (Peak, by Roland Smith). Earlier this year they read Flipped, by Wendelin Van Draanen, a book I love, a book I highly recommend, as do the girls. Flipped is a wonderful jumping off place for discussions about perspective and seeing the world from another point of view.

I read books for the online book review group From Left to Write, books that are mailed to me from the publisher, my choice from two options. Next up, Prayers for the Stolen, by Jennifer Clement. Book review date is February 18th, and while I am only a few chapters in, it's an interesting and quirky book about, thus far, childhood in Mexico. Given that I stretch my biography to include a Mexican childhood, I'm fascinated.

Over break I read Eleanor and Park (Rainbow Rowell), Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe (Benjamin Alire Saenz), and The Fault in Our Stars (John Green), all in an effort to keep up with the young adult books being checked out by the students at my day job, the volunteer librarian gig. If this is what is being written for, and read by, students, things are looking up. 

Last week I had exhausted my stash of obligatory book selections. Next to my bed, where it has been for over one year, sat Olive Kitteridge, (Elizabeth Strout), a book handed to me by my wonderful aunt whose opinion on books, and all matters, I respect greatly. Passages of this book were used to discuss character development in my writing group where one member, now my favorite person around the table, suggested that my writing style is similar to Elizabeth Strout's. Having only read one small part of the story, I had no idea what high praise this was. The book was begging to be read.

My children are learning to write in their fourth grade language arts class. They are being taught to build to a conflict and then work to find a resolution in their stories. They are nine and learning to use language to describe everyday events within a constricting framework, designed to teach them how to effectively tell a story. At nine they need the guidelines, the structure, to compel a reader to continue.  Elizabeth Strout sailed through this part of fourth grade and found her voice, not in the conflict, but in the words and story, with no need to tell us more than what happens in this small town on the coast of Maine, on any given day. I emailed the teacher, "can you teach my children to write like this?".

Olive Kitteridge is now forever one of my favorite characters, I miss her terribly even though I don't think I cared for her very much. Best to read it now, HBO pictures has a mini series in the works, Olive Kitteridge brought to life. I'll watch, just to check in, but I think I like her best in my head, as I see her, as Elizabeth Strout drew her so beautifully for me.

Included are several links to Amazon for the books referenced, my feeling being that Amazon is a wonderful resource for reading about and discovering new books. That said, I encourage all to  support local booksellers whenever possible, after you do your Amazon research.

Our Reading Promise

Once I had brushed my teeth and said a prayer, I climbed into the huge old Victorian bed, the same one she had slept in as a child, and waited while my grandmother found the book we were reading. She climbed in next to me, we pulled up the Little Red Riding Hood sheets, and she read. We read Anne of Greene Gables, The Magic Bed Knob, Mary Poppins, The Secret Garden, Tom Sawyer, The Borrowers and my very favorite,  Heidi. We read from an old copy of Hans Christian Andersen's Fairy Tales, my grandmother patiently reading "The Little Match Girl" over and over because it was always my first choice. When we had finished a book she told me stories of "Cuddles and Tucky", a series that ran in the Kansas City paper before I was born, adventures of a brother and sister. I remember thinking how amazing she was, to remember all those stories and now, as an adult, I know just how amazing she was, creating her own stories as we lay there in that big huge bed. While the stories we read are now amongst my favorites, what I remember most is how much I loved curling up next to her each night when she read, and knowing now that she took that time, every night, to be with just me. Whenever I stayed at my grandparents' house, my grandmother read to me before I fell asleep in my big old bed.

Last summer Jack gave me a copy of The Reading Promise (Alice Ozma),  a beautifully written memoir of one girl's promise she shared with her father: to read together every night until she left for college. It was clear from the start that I was going to love this book. Her single father is a librarian, one who eventually looses his job to the reorganization of his school; the years of accumulated books packed into boxes to make way for computers, an idea that gives me nightmares. As a daughter who lost her father much too soon, a mother who cherishes her nightly reading time, and a librarian who loves her job so much she volunteers, The Reading Promise was clearly one of the best selections Jack had ever made.

Last summer we made our own reading promise. We've been loose when necessary, a quick poem or two when homework, or exhaustion, kept us all up too late. We read every holiday picture book we own in the month of December, rather than bury ourselves in a novel that would take us away from The Elves and the Shoemaker or  The Tailor of Gloucester. We've made choices together, spending hours in our local bookstore scouring possibilities, and we've relied on my memory, somewhat. Knowing that one of the best books I read as a child involved a boy, New Jersey and fireworks, but unable to remember the title, I Googled those key words and discovered Henry Reed, Inc., by Keith Robertson. My memory is good, the series, of which we have now read three, is one of the best I know. They are still funny and wonderful and books to read in summer, as they all take place over summer vacation, and involve nothing more than the mishaps and quiet adventures of Henry and his friend Midge. There's no magic, no great adventure, just a boy, his dog and a cat sent up in the air in a weather balloon.

We've passed the one year mark with no end in sight. Of course I know that someday, in a time I am not now equipped to consider, our streak will end, as did Alice's. Their final read, huddled together in a stairwell of her college dormitory, was one that, even now, one year later, makes me weepy. Thankfully the beautiful story that led to the end was well worth the tissues required.

"Reading to someone is an act of love. This book is, above all else, a love story." -Alice Ozma

Our Reading Promise, Thus Far


Junonia, Henke
Nancy Drew, Keane
  The Secret of the Old Clock 
   The Hidden Staircase
   The Bungalow Mystery
   The Mystery at Lilac Inn
   The Secret at Shadow Ranch
   The Secret of Red Gate Farm
   The Clue in the Diary
   Nancy's Mysterious Letter
The Borrowers, Norton
Mary Poppins, Travers
Once Upon a Small Town, Mooy
A Christmas Memory, Capote
The Great Brain, Fitzgerald
Harriet the Spy, Fitzhugh
Secrets at Sea, Peck
The Journal of Finn Reardon, Bartoletti
Charlotte in Paris, Knight
Pollyanna, Porter
Henry Reed Inc., Robertson
Henry Reed's Journey, Robertson
Henry Reed's Babysitting Service, Robertson
From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, Konigsburg
The Secret Garden, Burnett
Betsy-Tacy, Lovelace

"If a child sees something in a parent that the child aspires to, he or she will copy that parent and be content. If children feel that a parent is living a life that shows compassion and understanding, patience and love, that child will not have to reach a stage of rebellion against that parent. Why rebel against someone who has listened to you and wants to help you fulfill your dreams? A parent who has proven time and again that the growth and happiness of his or her children is priority number one does not have to worry about where those children are heading in life. They will be sensitive and productive members of society for as long as they live." -Jim Brozina (Alice's Dad)

All that and I get to curl up and end my day with the best people I know, even on days when they have made me absolutely crazy, and I them? There is no greater way to say goodnight.

Mary Can Read, Everything!

"Dad, is Internet porn ruining your marriage?"

We were in the kitchen when Mary wandered in, face buried in the new edition of The Week magazine.

Jack smiled, "no, I'm good, thanks".

Mary can read and the world is a new and glorious place.

Finding the shortest line at Target is imperative. Where once they were content to help me move shampoo and paper towels from cart to counter, they now hover at the magazine stand, reading headlines unfit for my adult eyes.

"Mom, who is John Travolta? What is gay? Is it bad?"

Attempts to engage them in the fascinating business of checking out are only somewhat effective, "oh my goodness, look at this, we bought lavender scented bleach! What do you think that is going to smell like?". Overzealous examination of household products can only compete with US Weekly for so long.

"Kate, that is Suri and her parents are Tom and Katie. They are divorcing and no one knows what is going to happen to Suri", said Mary, gesturing to the cover of People. "Really", said Kate, intensely interested , "who are they?". "They are famous" answered Mary with authority.

Oops.

Earlier in the school year one of their classmates shared a story about a younger sibling taking off their clothes at preschool. Mary raised her hand. "I have a connection to that. Prince Harry took all his clothes off at a party and people took pictures of him naked!". We had just been to Target, I explained to very entertained teacher.

The truth is, once you can read you can read anything, and we're not safe anywhere.

You can hire someone to baby proof your home, to plug outlets and shield precious heads from lethal table corners but as far as I know, there is no such service to protect children from what lurks on the printed page. Maybe if they were reading the cover of the Times, if my scope of explanations extended only to the impending fiscal cliff or Libya, or even the soaring murder rate in Chicago, I might not wish to reader proof their world. But when tomorrow's news at the check out line is Snooki Stands Up For Fellow New Mom Jessica Simpson: She's a MILF!, I know I need to beef up the fascination factor of the cart contents.

"Girls! Look at this, over here, I am buying Windex with vinegar! Imagine that, like in salad, vinegar! The scope of my madness knows no bounds I tell you!"

Or maybe we just stay home and live with dirty windows.
 

Trapped on a Full Train with Pierre, Mary and Maurice Sendak

Beep beep.

Your attention please. Your train has been delayed while the conductor steps off momentarily. We thank you for your patience.

It was 101 degrees in Chicago and only slightly cooler in the subterranean tunnel where our red line train was delayed, stuck between two stations, which ones I had no idea as I had paid no attention to where we were. I looked to Jack, across the crowded aisle, sitting with Kate, who only shrugged his shoulders.

"I have never heard this message before. The conductor got off the train? For what, a cigarette?"

The woman across from me smiled knowingly, "oh this happens all the time, really."

Really? To remove a dead body from the tracks? Or maybe to pick up some treasure he'd hidden down here, in the bowels of the city? Perhaps he was lost and stopped to ask for directions?

"No need to worry, when you ride the train all the time, as I do, these things happen", said the local.

When you ride the train all the time, as I do, the conductor stays on the train and moves me from station to station, without being told to do so. While not quite the Titanic, I still felt like maybe this guy was supposed to go down with the ship. Why leave us all here to melt in this deeply buried tunnel of malodorous humanity?

The train did not move. Usually these automated messages are followed with "your train will be moving shortly" but this one offered no such reassurance. I looked around at the 400 or so others crammed into the stuffy train car,; all in various stages of decomposition, and smell, we were a mass of sweltering bodies trapped underground on a red line train going nowhere.

But this is not a story about my paranoia, or age related claustrophobic tendencies. It's a story about Mary, Maurice Sendak and wonderful books.

After three or four minutes my cool exterior was wilting. Mary, sitting next to me, reached into my bag and dug out one of two books she knows she will always find in my bag: Pierre, by Maurice Sendak. When I began to read she said, "no Mom, let me read to you this time", and she began.

Soon she was reading, not from the pages of the well worn book, but from memory, reciting the words that had been read to her over and over, from the story that has been in my bag, next to Sendak's Chicken Soup with Rice, for as long as she knows. For years, when faced with a tired child or a long delay, anything that required a distraction from the sometimes much too big world around them, I brought out the books and we would retreat, for just a while, into Sendak's world, which proved to be a constant and comforting place to be. As it still does, for a mom growing quite nervous, abandoned in an hot and dark subway.


The moral of Pierre's story is to care; Maurice Sendak's, to create, and mine, to read to your children, because someday they might just read to you.





Pierre, A Continuous Tale, by Maurice Sendak
Chicken Soup with Rice, by Maurice Sendak

When Did You Learn How to Read?

It's the first section I read, blasting past all the real news, all of which can wait until I have read every bit of the Sunday Style section of the Times. There's Modern Love, and Social Q's, and my very favorite, Weddings and Celebrations. It's a very legitimate way to snoop into the lives of people I don't know at all, comparing accomplishments of the bride and groom, and backgrounds of the families. I study the pictures, trying to decide why the 38 year old partner in the Manhattan law firm is choosing to take her husband's name, or why two people who live and work in D.C. got married in St. Louis, where neither of their parents live, or how the woman with two Princeton professor parents married someone without a college degree.

The Times is the perfect place to list everything that has been accomplished in a relatively short time: doctoral candidacies, degrees from Oxford, charitable board seats .....and yet, not one wedding announcement that I have seen lists the exact age at which the bride and groom finally learned to read. It's amazing, this very important milestone and it isn't so much as mentioned. It's probably best, imagine Aunt June, were she to discover that William's fiance didn't put together sounds and letters until she was almost seven; everyone knows that a relationship built between a five year old reader and a seven year old reader will never last. This tidbit could keep Aunt June at home on the wedding day and force her to return the place setting of china purchased for the once happy couple, knowing that the relationship was certain to fail. And heaven forbid that the 36 year old senior analyst who graduated with honors from Columbia be outed as one who struggled and didn't finish his first chapter book until third grade. Not only would his marriage be doomed, unless of course he was engaged to marry another slacker, but his professional career would surely be over. What kind of super analyst must you be to overcome that kind of dirty laundry?

This is vital information that is being withheld. Imagine how this could change the current drawn out Presidential election process: two candidates, one learned to read a full year before the other, election decided. We could have avoided this entire debt ceiling debacle by knowing that Obama was placed in an accelerated reading group in first grade while Boehner was left to learn with the average students. Obama plan wins.

This could mean the end of the ever intimidating job interview. Thank you for submitting your resume for our review but at this time we have chosen to go with a candidate who learned to read six months earlier than you did. We wish you luck in your job search however we know that you will never find anything in our industry as it clearly states on your resume that you never fully understood the letter of the day on Sesame Street and thus, remained in the standard reading classroom your entire academic career.

Everyone knows that the age at which you learn to read is the most accurate predictor of future success; just ask the moms on the playground. Why the New York Times hasn't picked up on this I will never understand. All the news that's fit to print? I beg to differ.

Books For Everyone

Reading makes me a better writer. Reading reinforces proper grammar, increases my vocabulary and makes me a much more interesting dinner party guest. Reading challenges me and makes my bag very heavy.

Not everyone agrees. Schools are closing libraries en lieu of media centers, or because there is no funding for books, or a librarian. We've spent the past year recreating our school library: painting the walls, ordering books, tearing up carpet, cataloging our collection and welcoming back the students who were turned away years ago when the library closed.

Some believe that funds could be better spent elsewhere, or that students who want to read can use the public library, or chose from books they have at home. The reality is that an urban school with a 60% low income population may not be drawing families who have personal libraries, or the time to spend at the public library. Children who spend afternoons at after school programs and don't arrive home until after 6:00 have little time to stop off at the library for a weeks worth of books. Providing access to quality reading material at a place where they spend six hours a day is vital to creating readers, a habit that will keep them learning for the rest of their lives.

Yesterday as I stepped on to the playground I was grabbed by a second grade girl, shrieking, "Ms. Ally! I don't want the library to end!". It's not going to end, we'll be back next year, and the year after that. Books are important, and I appreciate the reminder, everyday.