Support RIF and You Could Win a $500 Macy's Gift Card!

Be Book Smart!
Give $3 to Provide a Book for a Child and
Get $10 Off a $50 Purchase at Macy's

RIF has partnered with Macy’s to create Be Book Smart, a national partnership to raise awareness and support of children’s literacy. This effort will help RIF provide free books and literacy resources to children nationwide, while expanding RIF’s outreach to the children at greatest risk for developing reading difficulties. This campaign provides an opportunity for Macy’s customers to join the effort and have an impact on literacy in their community.

From June 21–July 21, 2013, Macy’s customers can give $3 to provide a book for a child and receive a coupon for $10 off* a $50 in-store purchase at any Macy’s nationwide. Macy’s will give 100% of every $3 to RIF. 

Since 2004, Macy’s has played an integral part of helping RIF carry out its mission, raising more than $25 million to support children’s literacy. That means millions of free books and resources for children who need them the most.
As we launch the 2013 Be Book Smart campaign, Macy’s and RIF are celebrating our 10th year together. Through this incredible partnership, we’ve done amazing things. With your help this year, a Macy’s customer using a Be Book Smart coupon will help RIF get the 10 millionth book to a child in need through this partnership.

Why Support the Campaign

Reason #1: By supporting RIF at Macy’s, you are helping provide free books and literacy resources to children in underserved communities. All children need access to books and to be exposed to reading at an early age to prepare for success in school and life. And for many of the children RIF serves, their RIF books are their only books.

Reason #2: Macy’s will thank you with a $10 off coupon* valid on eligible purchases of $50 or more!

Reason #3: You’re a Book Person and helping kids make you feel good.

To learn more, click here.

In Case You Missed It!

New York Times Reviews New Exhibit
at New York Public Library:
The ABC of It: Why Children's Books Matter

In the New York Times article titled "Bedtime With Puritans and Wild Things," journalist Edward Rothstein writes:

Photo by Suzanne DeChillo/The New York Times

The great green room and the purple crayon are here; so are the wild things and the poky puppy, Charlotte’s web and Alice’s wonderland, the very hungry caterpillar and the stinky cheese man. It is a reunion of creatures, characters and creations, gathered from memories of childhood and parenthood, and celebrated in “The ABC of It: Why Children’s Books Matter,” a remarkably rich new exhibition at the New York Public Library. 

To read the entire article, click here.

Activist Alert!

Ask Your Senators to Support Library Amendment to Immigration Bill

This week the Senate is considering S.744, the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act (commonly referred to as the immigration bill).

 

Sometime this week, Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI) will offer amendment #1223 to the bill, a library amendment.

 

Sen. Reed's amendment specifies that public libraries will be an eligible entity for funding for English language instruction and civics education. It also would add the director of the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) to the Task Force on New Americans.

 

Please call both your senators today and ask them to support Sen. Reed's amendment #1223, the library amendment. Libraries play a crucial role in assisting immigrant populations and they need to be a part of immigration reform.

 

To quickly find your senators' names and phone numbers, click here and enter your zip code.

Traveling with Kids

Make Your Summer Travels with the Kids FUN with the Anti-Boredom Travel Backpack

Make one for your kids, then you can relax!

"She took my markers!"
"Gimme back my Gummi Bears."
"Dad, he's taking up the whole back seat!"
"I'm hungreeeee."
"Mom, this is boring."
"Are we there yet?"

As the survivor of twenty years of traveling with children, I have three suggestions for parents:

1. Defy your spouse's request to keep packed items to a minimum! Let each kid bring their own pillow, blanket, backpack full of stuff, and electronic equipment. So what if you can't see traffic out of the back window of your van? Isn't that what rear and side mirrors are for?
2. Do not leave a rest stop until everyone has gone to the bathroom, especially the kid who claims "I don't have to go now."
3. When desperate, give them sugar.

Actually, whether you're traveling by car, bus, train, or plane this summer, the best way to make traveling fun, and keep family bickering to a minimum, is to fill a back pack for your child or teen with surprise items which will entertain and comfort them.

Before you begin to assemble your kid's individual backpacks you need to do the following:

• Find out your kids' favorite book authors, musicians, colors, gum, and candy. If you don't know, ask them. Don't tell them why. It will drive them crazy.
• Get their friends' names and addresses. Give them each a small address book and tell them they have to write down all their friends' full names, addresses, and zip codes. They have to return it to you before you leave. You can motivate them with a promise of a banana split. I prefer to bribe my children with an extravagant reward that I know, and they know, will probably never happen. I offer them their dad as a servant for a day, or I promise them a Jaguar on their sixteenth birthday. Hope blooms eternal.
• Find a backpack for each of your kids. You can be very brave and clean out their school backpack (beware of old tissues, leaking pens, and sticky, unidentifiable food remains) or you can be smart and get new packs in their favorite colors.

23 Great Things To Put In A Backpack
Pack some, or all items. Judge as to age appropriateness for your child or teen:

1. Bottle of water
2. Gum (sugar-free or regular)
3. Deck of cards (great cheap entertainment for hotel rooms and in crowded restaurants waiting for your meals to arrive)
4. Clip board (mini-travel desk!)
5. Bound sketchbook (so the pages don't fall out) for journal writing; drawing; playing tic-tac-toe and hangman; reviewing hotels and restaurants; writing silly limericks; making signs to communicate to other cars and trucks ("honk if you like mashed potatoes" was one of my kids' favorite signs); and keeping lists of: state license plates, animals they spot, cars they like, cool names they wish they had instead of their own boring name, things they hate/love about traveling by car.
6. Markers of all shapes and sizes. Younger kids like the scented markers. *Hint: take out of boxes and put in zip-lock plastic bag.
7. Kneaded eraser
8. Lead pencils and colored pencils. See* in #6. Remember you take a risk packing crayons, they melt in hot cars.
9. A great age appropriate, FUN paperback book or books (not mandatory books from their school's summer reading lists). Find books by their favorite authors. Ask your local librarian for entertaining books. Libraries have paperback copies as well hardback books.
10. Correspondent's kit. Tuck the following in a large zip-lock plastic bag: their friend address book, blank postcards, STAMPS, stickers, water-proof pens or markers, blank cards and envelopes. Encourage them to write to their friends throughout the trip. And stop to mail!
11. One-two packs of favorite candy. Keep back up supply with you to dispense gradually.
12. Terrific sunglasses
13. Healthy snacks – a banana, trail mix, or bag of carrot sticks
14. Plastic bag full of disposable hand wipes
15. Pack of tissues
16. Comic books
17. Dime store treasures: paper doll set (pre-cut and put in folder), animal stickers and album, Silly Putty, Fuzzy Magnetic Mustache Man, Kaleidoscope, etc.
18. Ipod or personal CD player
19. Audio books, age appropriate. Audio books are often more expensive than the books themselves, but at most libraries, you can borrow them for free.
20. Music of favorite musical group
21. Disposable camera
22. Cheap binoculars for spying
23.  Flashlight for reading/writing/drawing when it gets dark.

The "anti-boredom" backpack will not only keep your kids entertained in the car, it just might hone their reading, writing, and creative skills as well. Make sure to pack your own bag full of goodies. Why should the kids have all the fun?

© 2002 Mary Brigid Barrett; The National Children's Book and Literacy Alliance

Summer Reading

Summer Reading Recommendations  from Authoritative Sources Abound

Would you like to visit your local library or bookstore with a list of summer reading books for your kids in hand? Then check out recommendations from Reading Rockets, AdLit.org, and Horn Book!

• To discover recommendations for fiction and nonfiction picture books, as well as audio books, for kids aged 0 through 9, visit Reading Rockets' 2013 Big Summer Read.
• For summer reading adventures for young people aged 9 through 18, visit AdLit.org's Summer Fun list. 
• And, for a list of books for kids of all ages, visit the Summer Reading From the Horn Book page, which categorizes dozens of recommended books.

And don't forget to ask the librarian at your local library. He or she can help you find the perfect books for your kids based on their interests and reading levels.  

In Case You Missed It:NYT's Op/Ed Essay on Children's Literature, "No Learning Without Feeling."

"I like it when my students cry, when they read with solemnity and purpose, when the project of making meaning becomes personal. My middle school students turn again and again to highly charged young adult novels. The poems and stories they receive enthusiastically are the ones that pack the most emotional punch. Just as teens like to take physical risks, they are driven to take emotional risks. For teachers, emotion is our lever. The teen mind is our stone.

Put another way, emotion is the English teacher’s entry point for literary exploration and for the development of the high-level skills outlined in the Common Core State Standards, which have been adopted in 45 states. Unfortunately, the authors of the standards are not particularly interested in emotional risk taking but rather in the avoidance of political risk. It is a rather bloodless effort."

To read the full essay by Claire Needell Hollander, go to:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/09/opinion/sunday/no-learning-without-feeling.html?ref=sunday

Illustration by Jon Han

Summer Family Field Trips: Share Worlds of Picture Books With Your Kids!

The Eric Carle Museum in
Massachusetts.

"Again!" is the word I most often heard after reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar,by Eric Carle to my children. It is a word many parents hear when they read Mr.Carle's books out loud. Now children of all ages can see Mr. Carle's vibrant illustrations, as well as many other illustrators' colorful works, at the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art in Amherst, Massachusetts.

For more than two centuries, illustrations have excited children about books and reading. A family outing to a museum or gallery that exhibits original illustrations from familiar books will not only spur kids to read more, it will introduce them to the world of art. Seeing illustrations up close, and seeing how illustrations are made, will inspire young people to use their imaginations to create their own art.

Located on the Hampshire College campus, The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art is a museum that entertains and educates. It is the first full-scale museum in the United States devoted to international picture book art with the aim of "celebrating the art that we are first exposed to as children and that we carry with us throughout our lives." Along with ever refreshed exhibits of Mr. Carle's work, the museum features special exhibits of world renowned illustrators. It offers classes and workshops for children and their families, as well as professional workshops for teachers and librarians. The museum website, www.picturebookart.org,is a wonderful children's literature and literacy resource center for parents and teachers.

Once, a child wrote informing Eric Carle that he was a"good picture writer." Reacting to the child's observation, Mr. Carle commented, "I would like to be remembered as a picture writer and as someone who has opened a door for children to the world of pictures and words."

The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art does indeed open a door for children to the world of pictures and words. It wouldn't surprise me if the first word your child says after visiting Mr. Carle's museum is "Again!"--Mary Brigid Barrett, President, NCBLA

For special exhibit dates, directions, hours of operation, and other information about the museum, visit www.picturebookart.org

 The Mazza Museum in Ohio
                











Additional Field Trip Ideas

• The Brandywine Museum in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania. www.brandywinemuseum.org
• Cotsen Children's Library at Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey. www.princeton.edu/~cotsen/
• The de Grummond Children's Literature Collection at The University of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg, Mississippi. www.lib.usm.edu/~degrum/
• Elizabeth Stone Gallery in Birmingham, Michigan. www.elizabethstonegallery.com/press.html
• Every Picture Tells A Story Gallery in Los Angeles, CA. www.everypicture.com
• The Keene State College Children's Literature Festival Gallery Collection at Keene State College, Keene, New Hampshire. www.keene.edu/clf/gallery.cfm
• The Kerlan Collection in Minneapolis, Minnesota. http://special.lib.umn.edu/clrc/kerlan/index.php
• The Mazza Collection at the University of Findley, Findley, Ohio. www.mazzacollection.org/
• National Center for Children's Illustrated Literature in Abilene, Texas. www.nccil.org
• The Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. www.nrm.org/
• R. Michelson Galleries in Northampton, Massachusetts. www.rmichelson.com/index.htm
• The Society of Illustrators in New York, New York. www.societyillustrators.org/

Summer Reading Recommendations for Kids!

KIDS Summer Reading Classics:
Gone-Away Lake and Return to Gone-Away Lake

Elizabeth Enright, the only child of divorced parents, wrote one of the best, and most delightful, family novels in American children’s literature, Gone-Away Lake.

In Gone-Away Lake, city kids escape to the country to spend time with their cousin. Together they explore the landscape discovering an abandoned resort. A common childhood fantasy, often realized literally in kids’ clumsy construction of tree and club houses, is the idea of a secret kid place out of sight and hearing of parents. So much better than a club house is an entire Victorian summer resort community, forsaken and abandoned, and filled with who knows what hidden treasures?

Enright, the daughter of a political cartoonist and a magazine illustrator, and niece of architect Frank Lloyd Wright, was a talented visual artist who later discovered that she was an even more gifted writer. Her books are filled with engaging characters, vivid descriptions, gentle humor, and realistic family warmth that never dips into sentimentality.

Gone-Away Lake and Return to Gone-Away Lake are wonderful, entertaining summer reads. And if your son or daughter enjoys Gone-Away Lake, borrow Enright’s series of books about the Melendy family from your neighborhood library—The Saturdays, The Four Story Mistake, Then There Were Five, and Spiderweb for Two. The Melendy kids— a motherless family of five— are smart, talented, interesting,and interested. Like Frank Capra’s movie You Can’t Take It With You, Enright’s Melendy family series bubble with a quirky joie de vivre that is contagious. All Enright's books are available in paperback editions. –M.B.B.

In a digital age, parents value printed books for their kids!

 









The Pew Research Center Reports:

When it comes to sharing books or reading with a child, most Americans adults (not just parents) who have read both print and e-books think print books are the better option. 

More than nine in ten parents of minor children say it is important to them that their children read print books—eighty-one percent say it is “very important,” and an additional 13% say it is “somewhat important.” Very few say having their children read print books is “not too important” (3%) or “not important at all” (3%).

Read full article at:http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/05/28/in-a-digital-age-parents-value-printed-books-for-their-kids/

Good News for Readers, Writers, and Publishers from BOOK EXPO AMERICA

"E-book sales are no longer growing at a nerve-rattling pace. The unpleasant and expensive price-fixing lawsuit last year, pitting the Justice Department against five major publishers, has been settled. Independent booksellers added 65 stores to their ranks in 2012, according to their trade association, despite competition from Amazon."

Read more at: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/01/business/media/bookexpo-america-draws-20000-to-javits-center.html?ref=arts&_r=0

Summer Reading: The New York Times Book Review Suggestions for Adults and Kids!

The New York Times has published its summer reading recommendations for children and adults. You may want to check out all the children and teen book reviews for this year!

Go to: http://www.nytimes.com/pages/books/index.html

Book Notes: Let the Great World Spin

If you have not yet read Let the Great World Spin, run to your neighborhood library and borrow it and share it with any and all teens who live with you. Winner of the National Book Award, it transcends time and place and reaches out to all of us who have experienced deep sorrow, helping us find comfort in wholly imperfect human compassion.

Today there is an interesting article in The New York Times about Colum McCann the gifted author of Let the Great World Spin at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/02/magazine/colum-mccanns-radical-empathy.html?hp

Essential Reading in The New York Times:

“In Raising Scores, 1 2 3 Is Easier Than A B C” 

by Motoko Rich

Excerpts from article:

Here at Troy Prep Middle School, a charter school near Albany that caters mostly to low-income students, teachers are finding it easier to help students hit academic targets in math than in reading, an experience repeated in schools across the country.

Students entering the fifth grade here are often several years behind in both subjects, but last year, 100 percent of seventh graders scored at a level of proficient or advanced on state standardized math tests. In reading, by contrast, just over half of the seventh graders met comparable standards. 

The results are similar across the 31 other schools in the Uncommon Schools network, which enrolls low-income students in Boston, New York City, Rochester and Newark. After attending an Uncommon school for two years, said Brett Peiser, the network’s chief executive, 86 percent of students score at a proficient or advanced level in math, while only about two thirds reach those levels in reading over the same period.

“Math is very close-ended,” Mr. Peiser said. Reading difficulties, he said, tend to be more complicated to resolve.

The article continues: 

Studies have repeatedly found that “teachers have bigger impacts on math test scores than on English test scores,” said Jonah Rockoff, an economist at Columbia Business School. He was a co-author of a study that showed that teachers who helped students raise standardized test scores had a lasting effect on those students’ future incomes, as well as other lifelong outcomes.

Teachers and administrators who work with children from low-income families say one reason teachers struggle to help these students improve reading comprehension is that deficits start at such a young age: in the 1980s, the psychologists Betty Hart and Todd R. Risley found that by the time they are 4 years old, children from poor families have heard 32 million fewer words than children with professional parents. 

By contrast, children learn math predominantly in school.

“Your mother or father doesn’t come up and tuck you in at night and read you equations,” said Geoffrey Borman, a professor at the Wisconsin Center for Education Research at the University of Wisconsin. “But parents do read kids bedtime stories, and kids do engage in discussions around literacy, and kids are exposed to literacy in all walks of life outside of school.”

To read full article go to:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/30/education/reading-gains-lag-improvements-in-math.html?hp

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:

 

Report on Picture Book Panel Discussion Event at the outstanding Politics and Prose Book Store in 

Washington D.C.

"‘You motivate kids to be readers by giving them something great to read. It's as simple as that,’ said Mr. Scieszka…”

If you live in the greater Washington D.C. area, or are visiting, the must-see book store is Politics and Prose on Connecticut Avenue NW. There you will find not only a wide and diverse collection of books for children and teens, but Politics and Prose also hosts many interesting author and book events—we know because the NCBLA has experienced the staff’s warm hospitality first hand!

Karen MacPherson, the children's/teen librarian at the Takoma Park Maryland Library, recently reported  on a fascinating panel discussion that took place at Politics and Prose. Panelists included: author and children’s literature historian and expert Leonard Marcus; Neal Porter editorial director of Neal Porter Books;   authors Marc Barnett, Meg Medina, and Jon Scieszka;  and author/illustrators Christopher Myers and Laura Vaccaro Seege.  

FromMacPherson’s Scripps Howard News  column:  

"Picture books are stories told in two languages -- text and art. A third language is added by putting these things together as the story is read," said Mr. Marcus, who moderated the Politics & Prose panel.

The panelists agreed that digitized picture books are a poor substitute for the physical, print version.

"Digital books break a lot of the magic that makes picture books," Mr. Barnett said. "The page turn, for example, is a basic piece of language in picture books. That's how you show surprise and suspense. But, in digital books, the page turn is a fake" because all you do is slide your finger across a screen.

Read the full article at: http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/ae/books/childrens-corner-picture-books-for-children-still-popular-689394/  

 

Politics and Prose Bookstore Website:

http://www.politics-prose.com

 

Try to Read to Your Baby, Toddler, or Preschooler Every day!

The three most frequently asked questions to the NCBLA are:

1.    What is the best thing I can do to help my child be ready for school?

2.   What are the best books to read aloud to my child?

3.   When should I start reading aloud to my child?

The answers, in order, are:

1.    The best thing you can do to prepare your child for school is to create a language enriched home—talk and sing to your baby, toddler, and preschooler; turn off the screens in your home, look at each other and have family conversations at mealtimes, on the beach, in the car, in the grocery story, at athletic events and activities; take your young children to parks, playgrounds, and museums and talk with them about the experience; and of great importance, read books aloud with your baby, toddler, and preschooler. After you have read the book, talk to your child about the story and pictures. Try to find time to read to your child every day!

2.   The best books to read aloud to your young child are ones that are age and personality appropriate, that build on your child’s interests and expand his or her universe. The children’s librarian at your local neighborhood library will be thrilled to help you find the right books for your child. And below we provide several links to great lists of age appropriate books for your baby, toddler, and preschooler.

3.   When should you start reading books aloud to your child? The day he or she is born! And don’t stop reading aloud when your child  becomes an independent reader—“big kids” still love to have Mom and Dad take the time to read to them, too!

NCBLA Parent/Guardian Handbook: http://www.thencbla.org/PTMpages/parents/parenthandbook.html

Websites that provide great read-aloud tips for babies, toddlers, and preschoolers and websites with great book suggestions for babies, toddlers, and preschoolers:

·      http://www.readingrockets.org/article/23794/

·      http://www.readingrockets.org/article/35051/

·      http://www.readingrockets.org/article/24052/

·      http://www.education.wisc.edu/ccbc/books/detailLists.asp?idBookListCat=1

·      http://www.ala.org/alsc/issuesadv/borntoread/masterbooklist

·      http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/02/books/spring-board-book-roundup.html

·      http://www.trelease-on-reading.com/infants-booklist.pdf

·      http://www.pbs.org/parents/education/reading-language/reading-tips/summer-reading-tips-for-parents-of-babies-toddlers-and-young-children/

·      http://www.pbs.org/parents/education/reading-language/reading-tips/how-to-create-a-literate-home-baby-and-toddler/

Attention Coaches and Youth Mentors!

YOU Can Help Connect Kids to Books!

In the article "Great Ideas Connecting Kids to Books" by Mary Brigid Barrett in the NCBLA's Mentor Handbook on thencbla.org, Barrett explains how all the adults in a young person's life--not just a child's parents and teachers, but his or her other family and community members--can make a huge impact on a child's life. All adults who live and work with children in even limited ways can encourage kids to turn off the TV and video games and engage in a good book!

Here is an excerpt:

Grandparents, uncles, aunts, friends, neighbors, coaches, scout and camp councilors, youth volunteers—all of you have far more influence on the kids in your life than you know. And you have enormous influence on the children and teens that have parents who, for whatever reason, are unable to fulfill their parental responsibilities. Your position is free of even ordinary parental/child/teen tension, and because of that, your leadership and friendship are hugely meaningful, especially to preteen and teens that are naturally looking beyond their own backyards for mentors. Don’t be afraid to exert your influence encouraging kids to read, to write, to stay in school and learn.
 

To read the entire article, click here.

The NCBLA website is overflowing with informative articles for adults and who live and work with young people. Whether you are a parent, teacher, grandparent, or coach, you will find something to help you encourage literacy and help your kids become lifelong readers! Be sure to check out:

*  Parent and Guardian Handbook

*  Teacher Handbook

*  Mentor Handbook

Great Books for the Young Baseball Fans in Your Life

Take Me Out to the Ball Game,
But Let's Read a Book Before We Go!

It's baseball season! From little league to the major league, players and fans alike are playing catch, swinging their bats, and gathering for an afternoon at the ball park. If your child absolutely adores baseball, why not take advantage of that passion and look for baseball-themed books during your next trip to the local library?! Finding books whose subjects match your kids' passions is a great way to get and keep kids reading!
 
The librarian at your local library can help your kids find books that match your kids' interest. For some great ideas to get started with your search for young baseball fans in your life, check out the NCBLA's article "Home Run Reading: Baseball and Books for Kids," which not only offers tips but a list of recommended titles too. 

You might also want to check out Reading Rockets' "Take Me Out to the Ball Park" reading list for younger readers, as well AdLit.org's "Baseball Books" list for teen readers.