BRING ME A BOOK FOUNDATION

The Building Strong School Libraries program is designed to support the needs of struggling school libraries serving students in under-resourced, rural, and economically disadvantaged communities. Building Strong School Libraries is a book acquisition and a community literacy collaboration program that expands student access to high-quality and culturally relevant literature, increases family engagement, and builds an effective community literacy team with the public library, the school library, teachers, library staff, and caretakers. The school library is a key, critical instrument for not only developing strong literacy programs and improving reading proficiency, but more importantly for building lifelong reading habits.

Books in the home are a must! Children need quality books and a place to keep them so they are readily accessible. Based on these needs, we were inspired to design and manufacture small individual bookcases or “Book Cubbies.” Parents and children paint and decorate the drawer (built to hold a writing journal), add wooden letters to spell the child’s name, and personalize the cubby for each child. It then becomes the child’s home library inspiring pride of book ownership and establishing the child’s identity as a reader.

Engaging parents and caretakers is essential for the short and longterm success of students. When families are able to build a home library of books their children love, it helps establish a reading or “scholarly culture” in the home. This culture continues from generation to generation within families. It is largely independent of education and class. It entails creating a “taste for books,” and promoting the skills and knowledge that foster both literacy and numeracy and, thus, lead to lifelong academic advantages

The Bring Me A Book Speaker Appreciation program was developed for service clubs as a means of recognizing guest speakers at their regular meetings. Clubs adopt a local under-resourced classroom, from preschool through third grade, to receive the books that the club orders through the Bring Me A Book Speaker Appreciation Collection available online. Club members deliver the books to an organization or agency that serves children in under resourced communities such as school and public libraries, medical clinics, Boys and Girls Clubs, and the like.