Are You Kidding Me?

Memory lane . . . I was looking for some kids' books on Amazon and I wandered over to Jim Trelease's website. He wrote several guide books about what and why parents should read to their children. I'm a former librarian and lifelong bookworm, and his website is fascinating. (Better add "total nerd" to that description.)

He writes about an urban library. Tons of outdated material and no budget to replace them with new books. "Harry Potter? None. Gary Paulsen? One. Langston Hughes? None. . . . Not that the shelves were entirely empty. There were books on television (copyright 1955) and the telephone (1967), among others, that insult the young mind in search of reality on a printed page." http://www.trelease-on-reading.com/rah-ch7.html#printaccess So sad. But ahhh, how those crazy 1967 copyright dates bring back memories of my Kaaawa School library!

So Trelease's assertion is that children succeed when they have access to print. Simple, right? I love Gary Paulsen's story. He had a librarian hand him a library card and a book. It changed his life. (Paulsen writes books like Hatchet, which was a favorite of my sixth graders.) Reading rocks.