Do you ever look at a picture and find yourself swept up into a memory so strong you can then smell and feel that moment in time the memory was created?  That happened to me when I saw the cover of  Pictures from Our Vacation by Lynne Rae Perkins.  And what was it that triggered the memory?  The boardwalk.  The memory?  Girl Scout Camp Ouachita I first attended the summer after the second grade;  my small hometown had no swimming pool and the lake was the pool for camp; it is where I learned to swim and to canoe.  Different levels of water were divided by boardwalks, it was from these boardwalks we dived into the water as one was considered “soft” to go into the water by ladder.

Labor Day weekend is traditionally that last “hurrah” of summer, a time to catalog our summer memories for safe keeping to be brought forward through the years in many and varied ways…perhaps even by a book cover!

Happy Reading!
Carol

Twitter: @RascoFromRIF

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!

Lanesha is a 12-year old child of the Ninth Ward in New Orleans; she and Mama Ya-Ya have only one another, but Mama Ya-Ya is wise and loving and gives to Lanesha a strength and belief in herself far beyond what the “uptown” family who has discarded and forgotten Lanesha could ever provide her. Lanesha in turn provides these same gifts given her by Mama Ya-Ya to TaShon, a younger boy of the Ninth Ward who is himself an outcast as well. 

Ninth Ward was published in August 2010 and has already received the Parents’ Choice Gold Award and is the latest selection for the Al Roker Book Club.

PEOPLE /CHARACTERS 
In addition to the three characters named above, Lanesha, Mama Ya-Ya and TaShon, there is a teacher who is Lanesha’s “favorite teacher by far” with the name Miss Johnson.  She is a teacher who believes in Lanesha, helps instill realistic dreams and gives her a book as the storm approaches to help fill Lanesha’s time.

WORDS  
As Lanesha visits with Miss Johnson just prior to the storm when Miss Johnson is packing up to leave New Orleans for the weekend, the discussion turns to Lanesha’s skill with numbers and science.  Lanesha is talking about the studying she has been doing in the “B” world book on bridges since Miss Johnson first mentioned engineering as a field Lanesha should consider.  As Miss Johnson finishes her packing Lanesha thinks to herself “This is why I like this new school. Teachers fill my head with pictures and thoughts about what I can do.” What a powerful gift we can give children…pictures and thoughts about what they CAN do.

The final three chapters Still Monday, Monday Isn’t Over, and Tuesday are written with such clarity, energy and emotion I could feel the tensions and horrors I felt as I watched on television and read of Katrina’s aftermath daily five years ago.  The inner strength Lanesha has gathered throughout the story and the growth in TaShon are portrayed realistically and aligned with the characters as formed throughout the story.  These three chapters will be invaluable through the years in portraying, informing, sharing the story of Katrina.

SEQUENCES
It was gratifying to watch Lanesha’s confidence slowly build through the work of Miss Johnson, the friendship of Ginia and the strong love of Mama Ya-Ya.   The careful preparation Lanesha makes in her youthful but mature way for the storm and ultimately her reactions to the storm and the inner strength she draws from to act are the images Rhodes has planted firmly with me.

ART
Shino Arihara, the jacket artist, has done a magnificent job of capturing the “feel” of NINTH WARD: the mystery created of whether the boat is floating or sitting on the water, the stillness of the starry night, the colors of the impoverished homes, the hand held southern magnolia blossom which is noted in the story “…Magnolias mean dignity. Beauty.”  As Lanesha herself says “If Mama Ya-Ya were a flower, I’m pretty sure she’d be a magnolia.”  And shown on the cover at story’s end, Lanesha is indeed a magnolia blossom; still a child, yet sitting straight, eyes looking ahead, a being full of dignity and beauty. 

AND I TAKE WITH ME…
A story of hope, belief in oneself, the power of friendship and inspiration along with the following words by the author in her acknowledgments:

Books were my lifeline during a difficult childhood.  For my entire writing life, I’ve been waiting to grow up enough to write what I hoped would be a good book for young audiences.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      Jewell Parker Rhodes, you succeeded.  It is more than good.

Happy Reading,
Carol

The format for my book discussions is outlined in an earlier posting.  Please scroll down into the post for the explanation.

Twitter: @RascoFromRIF

UPDATE:  HOGS WON 44-3!
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A number of people have written me asking what in the world is this wavy thing about “pig and hogs” on Facebook?  This is a “wave” across the Arkansas Razorbacks football stadium, and “hog” (nickname for Razorbacks) football kicks off Saturday, September 4.  Arkansas is a rabid Razorback state, the red and white throughout the state Saturday will be phenomenal.  As one young Arkansas friend said who had also posted this “wave” - ”I’m not even a sports fan, but the Razorbacks are another story, it’s a religion here.”

Never heard Arkansas fans ”Call the Hogs“? 

Oh, you ask if there is a children’s book connection here?  Of course!

Happy Reading and Go Hogs Go!
Razorback Rasco from RIF

While the air doesn’t have even the hint of autumn yet in the Washington, DC area, the calendar says September, the windows of many commercial establishments show fall colors, the school busses are back on the streets and children are now not always running along the sidewalks more carefree but stooped forward with the weight of backpacks.  It is easy to allow our thoughts to immediately leave summer behind….

But I encourage each of us to stop, think and go to work on preparing for next summer!  There is no better time to reflect on our communities’ programming for summer learning than now when the summer of 2010 is fresh on our minds.  I am a broken record, yes, I know it but summer is such a critical period for literacy for our children.  Make sure your community has individuals attending the National Summer Learning Association’s (NSLA) annual conference SUMMER CHANGES EVERYTHING!   By the way, *wave* a Happy Anniversary greeting to NSLA and read about their productive year for children.

As school does start up sights often turn to “back to school” nights or regular family engagement nights, mornings, afternoons…Reading Rockets recently shared an article Creative Literacy Events for Families listing some new ideas, different twists on often-used, good ideas.  A family game night or cultural cookout sound intriguing to me!  Also, if you have not reviewed a copy of School, Family, and Community Partnerships: Your Handbook for Action by Joyce Epstein and others, you will want to do so.   Dr. Epstein is the Director of the National Network of Partnership Schools and the Center on School, Family, and Community Partnerships, Principal Research Scientist, and Research Professor of Sociology at Johns Hopkins University;  the Network will be hosting the annual Leadership Development Conference in Baltimore October 26 and 26;  you do not have to be a  member of the Network to attend.  It is a great opportunity for networking and learning more about the critical school, family and community partnerships critical to children’s educational progress. 

Another potential community or even Family Literacy Night activity that builds on the “One Community, One Book” concept was recently announced by Boston: One City, One Story.  I can see this as a great school night activity – what about you?

The school “start up” period also brings about a new flurry of discussion about types of reading:  book, e-readers, audio reading.  While the article was posted in April, I only recently had it called to my attention and it notes:  81% of the top iPad book apps (13 of the top 16) are for kids;  whether in print, on screen, really it’s just a book to the kids. And did you see the WSJ article recently labeled “THE ABC’S OF E-READING”?  In brief, it notes a study of 1200 e-reader owners found that 40% said they read more than they did with print books, 58% read about the same amount and 2% said they read less.  And 55% said they would use their device to read more in the future…worth a read.  And there is already an article that makes one think about the future of that thing we know as an APP!

Now, in case you are worried about friends who do all their reading by e-reader and you want them to remember “the print book” or you yourself are pining for the “good ole days”….you can order this if still carried: 
 This is weird. But that also makes it fun. Perfume that smells like an old book! The maker of this scent, Christopher Brosius, loves his books. He describes the odour of his product as: “English Novel taken from a Signed First Edition of one of my very favorite novels, Russian & Moroccan leather bindings, worn cloth and a hint of wood polish”. He made four varieties of his “In the library” scent. It comes as Perfume Absolute 15 ml and 2 ml, a Water Perfume and a Home Spray. You can find out more about it, and order it if you dare, here.

In talking about their new book pictured above, Sandra Feinberg and James R. Keller have said “How parents and caregivers act within the library setting often influences how children feel and how often they will come to the library.  How children feel when they use the library will affect their attitude and behavior not only when they are children but also when they become parents.”  One article commenting on this quote by the authors noted you can “substitute the word ‘reading’ for library…and is it any different?”  By the way, if you haven’t met Sandra Feinberg in print or in person, you must do so.  She is the Library Director at the Middle Country Public Library in New York, what a librarian, what a library!

Speaking of Libraries, have you seen this great game?  The Library Adventure Game!  It uses a web-based simulation to teach reference skills….sounds very interesting to me as a former sixth-grade teacher who struggled to find engaging activities on just this topic.

RIF invites you to join us along with US Airways in packing your bags and taking off with the the 2010 Read with Kids Challenge!  Remember, one part is where participants log the number of minutes they spend reading to and with children. This year, our nationwide goal is reading with kids for 10 million minutes between September 1 and October 31. Think of the incredible benefits kids will receive by spending quality time with you and some good books!  (and there are nifty prizes, check it out!)

DON’T FORGET these events:
 
National Book Festival, September 25
Even if you can’t attend this 10^th Annual Festival on the Mall, there are things on the website you’ll find interesting and more will be posted as the day draws closer!  Also, remember the next installment of The Exquisite Corpse Adventure begun at the 2009 National Book Festival will be posted on September 10, don’t miss it!

Lights on Afterschool, October 21

Twitter: @RascoFromRIF

P. S. RIF has located THE bookcase we want given we have programs in all 50 states…is this not the BEST?  Thank you Shelf Awareness for this great find:

Maria Menounos reads with kids at the "Nestle Share the Joy Reading Program" kickoff event.

Yesterday, Nestlé launched a new charitable initiative, “The Nestlé Share the Joy of Reading Program,” to support RIF’s national mission of helping kids discover the joy of reading. The program kicked off with a special guest reader at Los Angeles Public Library’s Robertson Branch—Maria Menounos, actress, filmmaker, and Access Hollywood special correspondent. Menuonos, who read several books to the children, commented, “Reading has played a major role in my life—I wouldn’t be where I am today if my parents hadn’t read to me growing up and stressed the importance of reading on my own at an early age.”

While “The Nestlé Share the Joy of Reading Program” will be donating to RIF, it also gives Nestlé customers the chance to win a wide range of prizes. Through this program, they can help a RIF kid receive a new book every time they open a variety of specially marked Nestlé products. By entering the package promotion code inside specially marked Nestlé candy bags at http://rif.celebrationcorner.com/, they’ll have a chance to become an instant winner of a $10 book certificate. And, they’ll be entered into a monthly $5,000 cash drawing.

Each time a person enters a valid package promotion code to play the instant win game, Nestlé will donate 10¢ to RIF. Nestlé will also donate a book in the form of $2 to RIF for each valid instant win prize claimed. Specially marked Nestlé product bags are currently in stores nationwide and will be available until the program ends in December 2011 or while supplies last. During that time, Nestlé will donate up to $250,000 to RIF, with a minimum guarantee of $100,000—and the more people play, the more money Nestlé will donate! So the next time you want to satisfy your sweet tooth, look for the specially marked Nestlé bags.

Happy Reading (while enjoying a sweet treat!),
Carol

 Grocery Shopping

• Writing Skills: Before arriving to the grocery store, have your child help you make a grocery list. 
• Word/image association: As you walk through the grocery store aisles make the connection between your written list and what you are placing in the grocery cart.  Have your child cross off items as they are placed in the cart.
• Cognitive Skills: When unloading groceries at home, ask your child to sort the items by food group before putting them away. 

Cooking

• Measurement:  Allow children to watch you read a recipe. Invite them to help you measure ingredients for the meal.
• Cause and Effect: As food is being cooked and/or created, children will observe the changes each ingredient goes through as it becomes a meal. 
• Writing Skills: If the recipe does not come from a cook book, ask your child to write it down.  This could be your first entry in a family cook book!

More fun with food

• Letter recognition: Use alphabet food items (pasta, cookies, crackers, cereal) to spell out words and names.
• Science: Grow your own fruits and vegetables! Planting teaches children basic science concepts and exposes them to nature and the environment.
•  Cognitive Skills: Help Riffington zoom through the supermarket while playing Supermarket Spree on the RIF Planet website.
• Reading Aloud: Search the Book Zone section of the RIF Planet website for great book titles having to do with food. One of our personal favorites is Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs by Judi Barrett.  

Whether you’re planting your own vegetables or creating a new delicious meal, be sure to include your child in this language and flavor- filled adventure!

Happy Reading!
RIF Training Team

Here we are in September, at the beginning of fall. How did the summer fly by so quickly?

When I was a kid, believe it or not, fall was the best time of year! Fall meant fresh pencils and a notebook with nothing in it, just pages of clean white paper. Fall meant Halloween was coming and leaves were changing, and of course, it meant school, but more than all of that, fall meant books.

Don’t get me wrong, summer meant books too. Beach reading. Lazy days. But when I was a kid, I spent my after-school time in the public library because my parents worked late. Every day at 2:30 I’d walk across the street to the Roland Park branch of the Enoch Pratt Free library in Baltimore.

At the library I’d read and read. But also I’d talk about what I was reading with the other latchkey kids who spent their afternoons this way too. There was a funny little crew of us, and we read every new title that came into the library. We learned to help the librarians shelve the books. We used tracing paper to copy the pictures from our favorite books. We shared our snacks with each other on the library steps and talked about how we might someday like to write and draw books too.

And now, thinking back on that, I wonder how many other kids had this experience. I didn’t just have access to books. I lived among them three hours a day, with an odd assortment of other characters who also lived in the library. Left to our own devices in the stacks of books, we visited faraway places, memorized magical spells, cried and laughed, and the world seemed enormous. We did these things together.

This fall, I have a new book coming out, Penny Dreadful. It’s the story of a girl who—like me—loves and lives in books. Penny Dreadful is full of references to other books Penny and I both love—from Ballet Shoes to Lemony Snicket’s Unfortunate Events. But there’s something I want to explain about Penny to anyone who might decide to meet her.

Penny Dreadful isn’t just about the importance of books. Because what Penny discovers is that books, wonderful as they are, aren’t enough all by themselves. Penny has all the books she could want, but she’s lonely. Books are only distractions for her, in a sense, from her life. Because she has nobody to share her books with. Until she moves to a town called Thrush Junction, and her life changes forever.

I think, sometimes, we see books as an escape. We see them as little vacations from life. We need them to be this sometimes. But at their best, books are the very opposite. They connect us to other people and to the world. If we have the right little crew of teachers, librarians, parents, friends who will share books with us—people who will turn books into vehicles not just destinations.

I’d like to thank RIF for being just that kind of right little crew!

For the third year, RIF and US Airways have teamed up for the “Fly with US. Read with Kids.®” campaign to promote the importance of reading with children.

If you’ve participated in the past, you know that a very fun part of this campaign is the Read with Kids Challenge, where participants log the number of minutes they spend reading to children. This year, our nationwide goal is reading with kids for 10 million minutes between September 1 and October 31. Think of the incredible benefits kids will receive by spending quality time with you and some good books!

When you join the Challenge and begin logging your minutes, you’ll be eligible to win weekly prizes, travel gift cards, and the grand prize of a US Airways Vacations package to the Walt Disney World^® Resort. In addition, if you make a donation to RIF through the campaign,  you can receive up to 5,000 Dividend Miles from US Airways. And free downloadable resources, like bookmarks featuring Maisy our campaign “Spokesmouse,” can help you spread the word to your friends and family.

As you can see, there’s a great deal to take advantage of in this campaign. Welcome aboard, and enjoy some wonderful reading adventures with the children in your life.

Happy Reading!
Carol

(From L to R) A family enjoys books & pumpkins during a trip to the pumpkin patch. Families celebrate at the "Fatherhood chili feed" RIF Distribution.

The Goldenrod Hills Head Start RIF program in Wisner, Neb. embodies the vision of its umbrella organization, Goldenrod Hills Community Action, Inc., by helping to create “strong family foundations built through education, empowerment, and support.”

At the beginning of each year, RIF volunteers, who oversee 16 sites and approximately 443 children, send out family interest sheets and fatherhood surveys to the homes of their students. After compiling the parents’ feedback they make a list of the most popular options for possible themes. The parents vote on the themes and the top three become the basis of the program’s RIF book distributions. 

The data volunteers collect also includes what talents and skills the parents would like to share to make the book distributions successful. “We ask ourselves, ‘What can we plan around their interests and hobbies?’” says RIF Coordinator Karen Leise, who oversees four of Goldenrod’s sites. “We try our best to gauge the needs of parents and to develop our activities based on that.” 

The program’s activities have included travels to the local pumpkin patch, where the children selected pumpkins and books, which they read with their families in a designated area. At a garden party, families learned about caring for plants and the children potted their own flowers to take home. And tea parties, goldfish races, pajamas days, and Dr. Seuss-centered events were some of the other activities held throughout the year. 

Several sites use their RIF book distributions to engage their communities. The Hartington location went to the Golden Living Center, a retirement home that in turn helped sponsor the site. There, parents read to their children and the youngsters shared their books with the residents. At a book distribution during Halloween, preschoolers and parents from another site visited the Oakland Nursing Home, where they decorated residents’ doors and the children staged a parade of costumes. 

Some of Goldenrod’s book distributions focused on food and fatherhood. At their Father Chili-Feed, RIF volunteers served up books and bowls of delicious chili as dads acted as guest readers. During the Pizza with Papa/RIF event, the head start classes made pizzas and bookmarks and the men read aloud to the children. 

Of their RIF program, Melissa Campbell, a teacher at the Hartington Head Start says “It’s an all around great program. It allows those who cannot afford to buy books or those who cannot make it to the library to be encouraged to read and it keeps families connected.” 

Congratulations, Goldenrod Head Start for being named RIF’s Program of the Month for September. 

Happy Reading! 

The RIF Program of the Month Selection Committee

Don’t ask me how this happened, because I still haven’t figured it out myself, but until recently my six-year-old son had managed to confuse Charles Darwin with James Bond.

Besides being good for a laugh, his mental mix-up got me reflecting on the intersection between fiction and nonfiction, and on just how entwined the two genres can be, especially for me as a writer.

Last year, as I awaited the publication of my picture book biography The Day-Glo Brothers, I was putting the final touches on another worlds-apart book, the completely silly Shark vs. Train. As that book was making its debut this spring, I was chasing down final facts for my upcoming young adult nonfiction project, “Can I See Your I.D.? True Stories of False Identities.” And this summer, when galleys arrived for that book, I was working on fiction (a middle grade novel involving anthropomorphism and explosives) while also thinking ahead to other nonfiction projects.

I slide back and forth between fiction and nonfiction without really thinking much about it, my experiences with one building on the other. I suspect the youngest readers approach the two genres pretty much the same way—when you’ve explored only a smidge of the world, all books are about exploring more of it. It’s as we get older, as both readers and writers, that our tastes divide.

Or rather, it’s when our tastes divide that we see ourselves as preferring, say, fiction over nonfiction. Among other creators of books for children and young adults, I’ve seen this manifested in what I call “Nonfiction Face.” Remember Mr. Yuk, the nauseated-green frowny-face poison-control logo of yore? I’ve seen that look on many of my peers when I’ve brought up writing nonfiction.

I suspect that’s partly because they still think of the less-then-compelling nonfiction of their youth rather than of the creative and powerful contemporary work of the likes of Tanya Lee Stone, Phillip Hoose, and Brian Floca. But I also believe that too many makers of Nonfiction Face have simply never taken the time to consider what sort of nonfiction book they would most like to create.

For each of them, there’s bound to be one such book. I’m convinced that for every last maker of Nonfiction Face, there’s some real-world subject that they already know more about, care more about, or simply find more interesting than most people do. I teach an entire workshop on this, but a self-help approach can yield the same results: If they simply give it some thought, they’ll realize that they would bring passion and enthusiasm to some angle on that subject that most people simply could not.

And based on my own experiences slipping back and forth between genres, I believe they might even find inspiration for their next fiction project. I’d ask, however, that they not get any bright ideas about 007’s famed expedition to the Galapagos. That one’s spoken for.