World Read Aloud Day March 9

An interest and the ability to read starts with hearing others read.  According to the organizers of World Read Aloud Day, "Nearly 1 billion people entered the 21st century unable to read a book or sign their name."  Last year, the organizers of World Read Aloud Day had people reading aloud in 35 countries.  Events are scheduled throughout the world.

Many books created for children are great for reading aloud so if you need a particular day to encourage yourself to reading to a child, to a teen or an adult, consider World Read Aloud Day a good reason.  This might be a time to find again a favorite poem, a passage from a chapter book or a picture book.  Or, it might be an impetus to volunteer in classrooms and after school programs that could benefit from an adult reading to children.

March certainly has many days emphasizing reading as well as Women's History Month, Youth Art Month, Mardi Gras, Lent, St. Patrick's Day, ComicCon in Chicago, the Ides of March, and, of course, the hopefulness of the beginning of spring.

Group reading of Lincoln's Farewell Address at Milner Library

Stovepipe hats, amazing hoop skirt fashions, and train whistles carried us back 150 years during a group reading of Lincoln's Farewell Address at ISU.  We were part of a national record-breaking effort to have the most people reading en masse.  The reading was the short speech that Abraham Lincoln said to well-wishers as he left Springfield, Ill., to his new position as President in Washington, D.C.  The words are heartfelt, melancholy, yet hopeful.

I would like to thank the librarians at ISU's Milner Library who helped organize the event and particularly asked if Jacob would enjoy leaving school for awhile and participating in the event as one of the lead readers.  We were happy to have him participate in a different educational setting for a few hours.  He appreciated being part of the interesting Lincoln event.  He wore the stovepipe hat that my parents bought for him at Lincoln's birthplace in Kentucky.  He also wore a black t-shirt from the Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield, which we have visited many times.  We thought it was great to see his name as a lead reader in the program.  And it's cool that he's in the lead of the article by the Pantagraph reporter.

When the Lincoln re-enactor gave the speech again after our first mass reading, he had a wonderful way of conveying the sadness and optimism that the new President must have felt. Gary Simpkins, playing Lincoln, understood the gravity of the situation that the Illinois man was facing.

The reading was also the kick-off for the Sesquicentenial of the Civil War.  Guess I'll have to work to remember how to spell that word because remembering the 150th anniversary of the Civil War is going to be an important moment to recollect the War Between the States.  Sometimes that seems long ago.  Then we read books, such as Russell Freedman's wonderful Lincoln: A Photobiography or Candace Fleming's The Lincolns: A Scrapbook, visit the battlefields of Gettysburg or Antietam or Shiloh, see the first capital of the Confederacy in Montgomery, contemplate the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., listen to the wistful tunes of the day, re-read Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, examine dagguereotypes, consider the long-term effects of slavery, listen to the continuing battle of states rights vs. federal rights, and suddenly those days don't seem so long ago.  The historical anniversary is welcome.

ISU's Banned Book reading highlighted by national librarian association

A photograph from ISU's annual banned book this year reading made it to the big time in the librarian world.  Check out this link to the AL Focus, on the website of the American Library Association.  You'll see a photo of Jacob and I after we both read at the reading sponsored by Milner Library.  How fun to see such a grand photo!  Thanks to Toni Tucker and staff for sending the photo to the ALA and organizing the reading.

I thought Jacob did a great job reading a selection from Junie B. Jones Loves Handsome Warren.  We had reviewed the possible books to read from and he chose a Junie B. book because we have had so much fun reading Barbara Park's books.  Then Jacob's acting classes kicked in as he practiced ahead of time and worked on the timing (credit to TheatresCool and ISU's Creative Drama for kids).  His mom and I are frequently amazed at his poise and confidence in performing. 

Glad to see that Milner Library gets promoted on the ALA site -- kudos to them!  Thanks to Milner for inviting both of us to read.

Fewer children's picture books being published

In "Picture Books No Longer a Staple for Children," an article in today's New York Times, a few bookpublishers, writers, and parents observe that there's a trend to leave behind picture books for the "challenge" of chapter books.  Is this a good trend?  I'm not so sure.

Picture books often are more engaging and interesting than some of the chapter books that may appear more "grown up" to adults and the kids whom they are encouraging to read.  I think this observation is correct:

“To some degree, picture books force an analog way of thinking,” said Karen Lotz, the publisher of Candlewick Press in Somerville, Mass. “From picture to picture, as the reader interacts with the book, their imagination is filling in the missing themes.”

Picture books involve children's and adults' imagination, enable everyone to develop storytelling skills, and enhance visual literacy.  I think that developing visual literacy and understanding children's visual culture is so important that I'm teaching a graduate course on that this semester.

I do think that publishers are making a mistake of publishing many picture books in hard cover with a high price tag.  The marketing format of Golden Books -- good books at low price points that are sold at the checkout counter or other easy to find places -- should be followed again today.  Too often big stores, such as Target and Wal-Mart, sell primarily TV and movie tie-ins or extremely popular books.  Children's book publishers should be more aggressive in promoting inexpensive, high-quality picture books in paperback to these types of stores.  Scholastic does this in schools, but many pre-schools don't have the Scholastic connections.  Grandparents and aunts and uncles also usually don't get the Scholastic fliers.  Scholastic, of course, has its own consumeristic tendencies, but at least it always sells a few books that are priced at $5 or less.

The tendency for parents to think that chapter books are better than picture books suggests, perhaps, that parents aren't reading all of the popular chapter books, either.  Instead of reading another Magic Tree House book, parents, teachers, and librarians should make the effort to get elementary school kids to read engaging non-fiction picture books -- such as The Dinosaurs of Waterhouse Hawkins by Barbara Kerley and drawings by Brian Selznick, The Boy Who Invented TV: The Story of Philo Farnsworth by Kathleen Krull and illustrated by Greg Couch, or books by the incredibly imaginative Peter Sis, such as The Three Golden Keys and The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain. Or here's a good link from a recent School Library Journal article on "Inventions: Waiting for Eureka" that mentions several similar type books including The Day-Glo Brothers: The True Story of Bob and Joe Switzer’s Bright Ideas and Brand-New Colors by Chris Barton illustrated by Tony Persiani, which was a fun read, and Mattie: How Margaret E. Knight Became an Inventor, written and illustrated by Emily Arnold McCully.

It's curious that at the same time that there's an interest by male readers 18-34 in graphic novels and comics, the adults that are guiding the youngest readers are insisting that books that comprise mainly of text are the way to go.  But readers of graphic novels and comics are clearly sensitive to price points, as yesterday's report at New York's Comic-Con on these readers has noted. It's curious that just a 20 cent change in price point causes a significant decrese in purchases: "The complaint of high prices was discussed as well, along with the statistics that the average cover price of a comic book in the second quarter of 2010 is now $3.53, up from $3.38 in 2009."  Maybe the picture book publishers should take heed and publish more paper backs at more reasonable prices.

Because, like it or not, we live in a culture that's as much visual driven as word driven. Kids instinctively know that. To take away their ability to learn through picture books that combine visuals and words for chapter books seems counter-intuitive by adults.

Talk like a pirate: read like a pirate

To Talk Like a Pirate, you must read about pirates.  Here's my list of 10 great books about pirates.

1. Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson.  The incredible 1883 classic told, mainly, through the lens of young Jim Hawkins about his adventures with Long John Silver. 

2. Peter Pan; or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up by JM Barrie.  Part of the appeal of Barrie's 1904 novel and play is the tension between adolescent and adulthood.  That's the underlying theme -- the theme we think about, however, is the rollicking fun between Hook's pirate and Peter's Lost Boys.  Check out related film adaptations as well.

3. The Swiss Family Robinson by Johann David Wyss.  The pirate attack is a key element in this 1812 novel about a proper family from Switzerland shipwrecked on island and trying to bring their own form of civilization.  Jules Verne wrote a sequel in 1900 called The Castaways of the Flag.

4. Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe. Crusoe's classic adventures on the high seas in 1651 go wrong from the beginning when his ship is attacked by pirates and he becomes a slave.

5. The Pirates of Penzance; or The Slave of Duty by W.S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan.  This delightful 1879 comic operetta features the great song early on "I Am a Pirate King."  Our favorite version of the operetta, and we have seen probably 9 by now, is still the 1980s version with Kevin Kline, Linda Ronstandt and Rex Smith.  

6. High Wind in Jamaica by Richard Hughes.  The 1929 novel is about a group of children kidnapped by pirates.  The boys and girls must defend themselves against the meanness and desires of the pirates.  

7. The Not-so-Jolly-Roger by Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith.  For young readers who want a pirate adventure but may not be ready for some of the great novels on this list, try Scieszka and Smith's 2004 tale that's part of the lively and funny Time Warp Trio series.

8. The Book of Pirates by Howard Pyle.  How we imagine today what pirates looked like is still influenced by the detailed illustrations by American author and illustrator Pyle.  His Book of Pirates was published in 1921, 10 years after his death, and is a collection of several stories that he wrote and for which he created beautiful, detailed watercolors.

9. Coral Island by R.M. Ballantyne. Three teen-age boys are kidnapped and live among the pirates in this 1857 novel that includes death, cannibalism, surfing, stealing and Christian missionaries. William Golding's 1954 Lord of the Flies, another intense novel about boys on an island, is a response to this classic Scottish adventure.

10. Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain.  Tom and his friends love playing pirates at home and on the island in the Mississippi River to which they try to escape from their childhood responsibilities.  As they do, their lives become more complicated in Twain's 1876 novel.  Try reading it aloud.

Update on Monday, September 19, 2011 at 01:53PM by JAS

On another Talk Like a Pirate Day, just wanted to write again that pirate literature continues to be a good way to get kids, especially boys, who are interested in pirates to get them interested in books and culture.  Even when our son was young, he could enjoy watching live and video versions of The Pirates of Penzance because he was so fascinated by pirates.  You might be surprised at kids' ability to tackle books that might be a little difficult to read if they are interested in the subject.  Let them start with Treasure Island, or find the graphic novel version and get them reading that way.