Literacy

Scholastic has announced that it is donating one million books to Reach Out and Read, the nonprofit organization that helps implement early-childhood literacy awareness during a child’s regular medical office visits. The donation comes just a day after Reach Out and Read was recognized by the Library of Congress as the recipient of the new David M. Rubenstein Prize for advancing literacy.

Librarian of Congress James H. Billington has chosen the winners of the 2013 Library of Congress Literacy Awards, a new program originated and sponsored by philanthropist David M. Rubenstein. The recipients are the Reach Out and Read early literacy program in Boston; MA, 826 National, San Francisco, a K–12 tutoring and literacy program; and the international program PlanetRead, based in Mumbai, India.

Thanks to an innovative community effort, Enfield, CT, is fostering children’s literacy in unique ways. Our “First Readers” program—an expansive collaboration between Enfield’s libraries, schools, civic leaders, board of education, and families—honors learning to read as an important milestone in children’s lives, culminating in town-wide celebrations and even a yearly parade. It’s well worth the effort in creating a culture of literacy for kids, and inspiring them to learn.

The University of London’s Institute of Education (IOE) has released a study showing that children who read for pleasure are likely to do significantly better at school than their peers. The study, which is one of the first to examine the effect of reading for pleasure on children's cognitive development over time, finds that children who read for pleasure made more progress in learning math, vocabulary, and spelling between the ages of 10 and 16 than those who rarely read.

First Book has made significant strides this summer toward its new goal of dramatically expanding the market for diversity in children’s literature, its president and CEO Kyle Zimmer tells School Library Journal. Through its unprecedented launch this spring of "The Stories for All Project" and the project’s successful, gradual implementation over the past few months, First Book is now poised to lobby publishers and influence the kid lit industry like never before, Zimmer says.

While the jury is still out on the big screen adaptation of Cassandra Clare’s City of Bones, reviewers are raving about the surprise indie hit The Spectacular Now, based on Tim Tharp’s young adult novel. Children’s books continue to be Hollywood’s go-to source for inspiration, and librarians couldn’t be happier. As readers and movie fans await the book-to-film entries coming this fall, such as Suzanne Collins’s Catching Fire and Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game, SLJ looks ahead to future releases in this latest installment of Page to Screen.

The first movie adaptation of Cassandra Clare’s popular series, The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones, is out in theaters on August 21. Lily Collins as Clarissa “Clary” Fray and Jamie Campbell Bower as Jace star in the action-fantasy, which provides the thrill of the chase and a sprinkling of the romance for its core audience.

We all know about the summer reading slide. This summer, 180 students from two Buffalo (NY) suburban school districts spent four weeks with grad students working on their reading and writing skills, hoping to reverse that effect.

Back in the fall of 2010, SLJTeen reported on one librarian’s dream to build a library at the Jambo Jipya Academy in Mwtapa, Kenya with the assistance of the organization Reason2Smile. The fundraising is almost complete and Jambo Jipya is hoping to expand and purchase the land adjacent to the school to become the future home of the school library. Donna Rosenblum brings us up to date on her quest to build that library.