A library program connects inmates and their children through reading

The tension in our first class is almost tangible. The inmates, waiting in the hallway and watching us unpack books and set up the DVD player, shuffle into the room. They’re walking into a “parent education” class and have little idea what to expect. They’re not the only ones. As the library staff members who are about to lead the session, we’re not sure how well things will go.

We start with The True Story of the Three Little Pigs! (Viking, 1989) by Jon Scieszka. As you know, this is the classic story, but told from the point of view of the wolf, who sees himself as framed by circumstances beyond his control. We start with this story because it quickly cuts through the uneasiness. Just a few pages into the book, we detect little smirks and chuckles from the very same inmates who arrived with their arms crossed and mouths set in thin tight lines. By the end of the book, everybody is laughing. Leave it to a children’s picture book to bridge social barriers.

Books Without Barriers, a collaboration of our library and the local county sheriff’s department, teaches incarcerated parents to reach out to their children through shared reading. In a series of three weekly classes, the participants learn about brain development, the lifelong benefits of early literacy, using the library as a valuable resource, and how to choose and read books to their children.

We end the first class with Visiting Day (Scholastic, 2002) by Jacqueline Woodson. We let the parents know that this is a very different type of picture book. Whereas the first book was humorous and tongue-in-cheek, this one reflects a true-life situation of a little girl visiting her father in prison. We let the parents know that books can act as a tool to begin talking about difficult topics. In this particular book, we mention how it must feel to a child to know there is another child going through a similar situation in which her parent is in jail.

During the second class we read together The Little Mouse, the Red Ripe Strawberry, and the Big Hungry Bear (Child’s Play, 1984) by Don and Audrey Wood. We often ask parents to look at the book through the eyes of a very young child who doesn’t know that a book has a title, an author or illustrator, or even which way the pages turn. We demonstrate dialogic reading, asking questions about the pictures. We notice how many more vocabulary words we use when we practice this type of reading. With encouragement, all the inmates participate.

At the beginning of the last class we introduce Good Night, Gorilla (Putnam, 1994) by Peggy Rathmann. We mention that anyone in the child’s family can share this wordless story, regardless of native language or reading ability. Interestingly, reading wordless books not only helps a child develop narrative skills, it brings out the actor in many of the parents.

The classes culminate in a videotaping session in which the parents use their new read-aloud techniques to read a favorite story with their child as the intended audience. The videotape is then mailed to the child. Some parents perform skillfully; some struggle with the language; some are understandably nervous. It’s not unusual to see fathers, even those who are serving time for murder, break down in tears as they read Goodnight Moon to the child who is waiting for them to come home.

The parents, some of whom have been sentenced to numerous years, all express feelings of guilt and regret over their own past and the loss of connection with their children. One father reported that he never read a whole book until just recently in jail, but now he finds that it is something he enjoys and can share with his son.