Felix and Jordan were looking for a book that could help their son get ready for his role as a big brother. But none of the families looked like their interracial family. It took some time, but they eventually found their book (All the World, by Liz Garton Scanlon, illustrated by Marla Frazee). And the entrepreneurial couple realized there was a need among countless other parents they could help solve. Thus, Zoobean was born – a site that makes it easier to find remarkable books for kids.

The husband-wife team sat down recently to answer a few questions from RIF.

Q&A

B: Tell us about your family. What books are currently going over best with your little ones?

J: My husband, Felix, and I met when we were teachers in Washington, D.C., where we now live, after having moved around the country quite a bit.  We have two children, 3 and 1, who keep us very busy!   We still love reading All the World to the kids at bedtime; our son likes to let us know, “That’s me, and that’s my sister,” which is really cool because he actually sees himself in the book we’re reading.

Other than that, he is a huge fan of most Ezra Jack Keats books, anything that has to do with tractors or construction – Otis is a big favorite. He also enjoys The Three Ninja Pigs.  The kid wants to be a ninja astronaut when he grows up!  Our daughter still loves board books, especially Everywhere Babies. She’s fascinated by babies.

B: Have you always been a reader? What’s your favorite book to read with your kids?

I grew up in a family of readers.  Some of my earliest memories of my mom and dad are of them sitting on their bed, both reading, and inviting me up to sit with them and read through my books alongside them.  We try really hard to cultivate that same love of reading and stories with our children.

My favorite books to read with the kids are All the World, the Knuffle Bunny series – which give me an opportunity to be silly – and almost any wordless book.  We’re really into Zoom by Istvan Banyai, and also love the newer Bluebird by Bob Staake.   Wordless books give you the opportunity to create stories and offer your young child the opportunity to “read” the book to you independently.

B: Here at RIF, we have been highlighting our Multicultural Literacy Book Collection for many reasons. On Zoobean, you’ve been showcasing multicultural books too. Can you tell us a little more about what you’ve found in this process?

J: That’s great to hear. It’s so important that kids are able to see themselves in the media and images around them.  At Zoobean, we want to ensure that all kids are able to see themselves in the stories they read.  In our case, as an interracial couple and family, we wanted to be able to find books that had mixed kids in them.

When I searched on other, all-encompassing sites, the result was recommendations on hair care products and other irrelevant information.  At Zoobean, we make finding the right book easy by extensively cataloging our books, including the main character’s background, along with other tags that really matter to parents.  While the data tells us that the stories out there simply don’t reflect the population, we do think there are more books than folks know about, and we hope Zoobean makes it easy to discover them.

B: As former teachers, do you think Zoobean would be more appealing for parents than teachers?

J: As a Language Arts teacher, I spent countless hours in bookstores and libraries trying to find books that would challenge and engage my students.  In my case, the librarians became my best friends and helped me make excellent selections.  But not all parents and loved ones want to spend so much time going through this process.

What Zoobean offers is a way to scale that experience you have at an amazing bookstore, where you say, “I want a book that has a brother and sister in it.  I’d like the family to be mixed, too,” and boom! Someone recommends All the World to you.  Or, “I am looking for a book that has a not-so-pink girl main character and emphasizes emotional development like embracing individuality.  Oh, and my daughter just loves animals,” and boom! Someone recommends Me…Jane.  Zoobean helps to scale that experience of finding a great, recommended book in a way that is simple and relevant for families.

B: When and why did you decide to donate to a non-profit with your “Love Collection”?

J: Our core values of love, inclusion and remarkability led us to this decision.  The books that we sell in our shop, the Love Collection, help support youth literacy causes.  We believe that finding the right books for kids can help them imagine and achieve anything, and it’s important to us to support this love for reading in all communities.

B: Thank you so much for your time. What parting advice would you have for parents who are trying to find books to help their kids?

J: I typically recommend a common-sense approach to picking books.  It’s a mantra in tech: focus on the user.  The same applies here.  Parents, listen to your kids! Then, find books that will resonate with what they love and are experiencing.

Into cars?  Find books about cars.  Having trouble sharing with friends?  Look for books that include lessons about sharing.  And of course, we are also fans of finding books that expand a child’s perspective and help him/her see the world and a variety of points of view through books. From there…it’s up to us, the parents, educators, and loved ones, to make the reading fun and engaging for kids.

Creating a sense of wonder and love for reading at a young age is such a gift.  I’m grateful to my parents for doing that for me, and I hope we’re able to inspire others to do that for their children as well.

Check out Zoobean to discover remarkable books for the kids in your life and to learn more about the incredible family behind it. You can also connect with them on Twitter (@zoobeanforkids), Facebook (facebook.com/zoobean) and Pinterest (pinterest.com/zoobeanforkids).

Photo Source: BEN EASTER photography

Ahhh, to be a teen-ager again. Pizza joints. The latest blockbuster. Passing time with friends. Hang on a second … kids these days are doing some pretty amazing things — and our friends at Nestlé are honoring 20 impressive teens with incredible stories to tell.

Nestlé’s Very Best In Youth program identifies teens making a profound difference in the lives of others. They’ve founded non-profits, become such consistent volunteers they’re practically staffing their local non-profits, and raised awareness about critical causes in their own backyards.

They’ve done everything from forming youth mentorship clubs, to creating rolling book cart libraries, supporting food banks, engineering energy-efficient school buses, and working with orphaned children.

While their work varies, they’re all superstars in their communities – and they all know schools in their area that could use some help. RIF is proud to be able to help honor these incredible teens with the donation in their name of RIF’s Multicultural Book Collection – developed with the support of our partners at Macy’s and featuring Science, Technology, Engineering, the Arts and Math (or STEAM) themes. Honorees chose need-based schools to receive the 40-book collection.

Like the school in Pensacola, Fla., chosen by honoree Mary-Grace Reeves, a Harvard student who’s working to become a pediatric ophthalmologist. Vision and literacy go hand in hand and Mary-Grace is proof. While she dreams of advancing retinal surgery for children, she’s already founded a youth historical literacy and community service program in the Gulf Coast.

After becoming familiar with RIF through her book donation to Oakcrest Elementary, she’s also hooked on ensuring every child in need has access to the books and resources they need to succeed in school and life.

Thank you, Nestlé, for your strong support of RIF for nearly 20 years, helping hundreds of thousands of low-income children to share the joy of reading!

On Facebook? Be sure to ‘like’ Share the Joy of Reading and Reading Is Fundamental for stories like this and more. 

It’s a slippery slope. “Summer Slide” is what we use to describe learning loss for children over the summer – a loss disproportionately affecting underserved children. Researchers put it at two months (if not more) of learning loss. And the effect is cumulative, causing a significant achievement gap between low and middle-income children down the line.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. There’s a solution and RIF is hard at work finding the lowest cost, most scalable solution for the children we serve.

Under the grant we received through the Department of Education’s Innovative Approaches to Literacy program, RIF is giving 20,000 children in 145 schools and 33 school districts tools to help stem – and maybe even reverse – some of the learning loss that they face each summer. And it all starts with books.

Before they leave, students involved in the program will pick out five of their very own books to call their own. They’ll come back and pick up three more. Throughout the summer, their parents will have tools to resources at school and activities to keep the books fresh and engaging for kids.

The project should yield both qualitative and quantitative research, so we’ll have an in-depth analysis in the fall about the effect on the kids’ learning gains.

In addition, we’re giving each of the classrooms in the 145 schools – and every library or media center in the school – their very own Multicultural Book Collection, along with activities for teachers, parents, and RIF coordinators to keep kids learning throughout these critical summer months.

But you don’t have to wait for the results. We know from research already done that simply reading with the children in your life – and making sure they have books at their fingertips – is a key way to help children retain learning.

Want ideas on how to keep the reading going at home? Here are some simple tips:

• Visit. Head to the library and sign your kid up for a library card if they don’t already have one. In addition to a wide selection of books to borrow, many libraries have free, child-friendly summer reading programs. Going to a baseball game? Read a book about baseball before you head off to that double-header.
• Lead. Kids look up to you, so lead by example. Read the newspaper at breakfast, pick up a magazine at the doctor’s office, and stuff a paperback in your beach bag. If kids see the adults around them reading often, they will understand that all types of reading can be an important part of their summer days. Storybooks aren’t the only thing that kids can read. Be prepared and keep all kinds of reading material on hand that might spark the interest of a young reader.
• Talk. Talking with your kids about what you have read also lets them know that reading is an important part of your life. Tell them why you liked a book, what you learned from it, or how it helped you—soon they might start doing the same. Going camping? Have your kids tell stories to their friends.
• Relax. Reading is supposed to be fun. So relax. Don’t set daily minute requirements or determine the number of pages they should read. Instead, make sure they pick up books that appeal to them and help find ways for them to choose to read on their own.

For more summer fun, use our summer reading activity sheet.

Photo Source: read4thefunofit 

“You can’t be a writer without reading. It’d be like trying to be a chef without ever eating.”—George Ella Lyon

An audience of 65 5th-grade students were treated to the wit and wisdom of author and poet George Ella Lyon today at DC Prep’s Edgewood Middle Campus.

Lyon’s book “All the Water in the World” is featured in RIF’s Multicultural Book Collection, which was also provided to the school. And instead of reading the children her book, Lyon (who is also a singer and songwriter) sang them the book, with the kids leading the chorus.

Lyon talked a lot about the experiences she had as a child and how they led her to becoming a writer, encouraging them to share their own stories with the world. She showed the kids her writing notebooks. And she answered some great questions from a very engaged and gracious crowd.

Then, in true RIF style, students got to pick two books from a large selection of titles. (Nancy Drew and Wayside School books were a big hit.) They wrote their names in their books, sent us off with a big “THANK YOU!” and headed back to their classrooms, with books and summer reading activities in hand.

The event was all part of our partnership this year with the Junior League of Washington (JLW), which reached 6,500 other students in D.C. this week, all taking home two books of their own.  Throughout the year, RIF and JLW have given out more than 33,000 books to kids in underserved communities.  Talk about book people uniting!

Involved with community organization like the Junior League, Lions Club or Kiwanis Club and looking to get involved with RIF in your area? Contact Jennifer Katz, RIF’s director of government relations & community outreach, to learn more.

Basketball legend and children’s book author Kareem Abdul-Jabbar joined RIF in giving the kids of Amidon-Bowen Elementary the gift of reading with their very own copy of WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE —and a special reading of the book by Kareem.

Amidon-Bowen holds a special spot in RIF’s heart – as it’s home to the very first RIF program. The school was also presented with RIF’s Multicultural Book Collection, in recognition of Margaret McNamara, RIF’s founder, and Barbara Atkinson, RIF’s first programs director. And thanks to the generosity of longtime board member and daughter of RIF’s founder, Margaret McNamara Pastor, the school is just one of 27 DC-based RIF programs to receive the Collection.

Seeing the smiles on faces of the kids and teachers as they received their books was a perfect way to end our wild rumpus.

Check out our Flickr album for more photos from the distribution!

Keep the wild rumpus going. Download our “Where The Wild Things Are” activity sheet for your kids.

Help kids in need get a book of their own. Learn how: https://secure2.convio.net/rif/site/Donation2?df_id=2432&2432.donation=form1&JServSessionIdr004=n1idgjrhk2.app202a

Photo: Left, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Right, Kaya Henderson, Chancellor of D.C. Public Schools (Kevin Wolf/AP Images for Reading Is Fundamental)

Unfamiliar with the history? The day recognizes the surprise defeat of Napoleon’s French army in the State of Puebla. The battle was an important victory in Mexico’s fight to end the French occupation.

Celebrate with these Mexican-American inspired Pura Belpré Award books:

• Diego Rivera: His World and Ours by Duncan Tonatiuh
• Frida: ¡Viva la vida! Long Live Life! by Carmen T. Bernier-Grand
• Me, Frida by Amy Novesky, illustrated by David Diaz
• César: ¡Sí, Se Puede! Yes, We Can! by Carmen T. Bernier-Grand, illustrated by David Diaz
• Harvesting Hope: The Story of Cesar Chavez by Kathleen Krull, illustrated by Yuyi Morales

Earth Day is a wonderful opportunity to pass along important values and set an example for little ones in your life.

So how do you teach kids about Mother Earth and what they can do to help her?  Start with a book.

We’ve got your nature lovers covered with a selection from our topical Multicultural Book Collection. “We’re Roaming in the Rainforest,” “10 Things I Can Do to Help My World” and “National Geographic: Little Kids First Big Book of Animals” are all great green books with exciting activity ideas to keep kids interested and involved.

Need more Earth Day ideas? Check out our Pinterest Earth Day Activities board to get some “pinspiration.”

We had an incredible time in Austin last week, celebrating books with Reading Is Fundamental friends and volunteers.

We kicked off the trip with a wonderful discussion of the book “Miss Lady Bird’s Wildflowers.” Lynda Johnson Robb, a founding board member of RIF, shared her mother’s legacy along with Kathi Appelt and Joy Fisher Hein, who wrote and illustrated the book.

Luci Baines Johnson also praised Lynda’s longtime support of RIF, sharing an especially touching story about their mother as a child.

Miss Lady Bird lost her mother at an early age.  One day, her daddy, seeing she was sad, asked what he could do to help. She said, “No daddy, you can’t help. It’s OK.”

He pressed her more, asking if he could at least try. The child said, “Oh daddy, no, you can’t help. It’s just that I miss momma so much. And momma used to read to me. I really miss momma and reading.”

Her father responded, “Well, honey, I can read to you.”

The child stopped, shocked, and said with surprise, “Daddy, you can read?”

Even at that young age, Miss Lady Bird couldn’t understand why someone who could read wouldn’t be reading all the time.

The legacy of the Johnson family is large in Austin and it was at the LBJ Library that the next event was held. At a Book People Unite celebration, families met authors Chris Barton, Cynthia Leitich Smith and Tim Tingle, who all have books in RIF’s Multicultural Book Collections. Curious George joined the festivities, as did Kay Gooch, one of RIF’s Volunteer of the Year Award recipients. Parents and kids from Kay’s school, Gullett Elementary, and the families from the Book Spring program, which runs the RIF program in the city, had a great time.

The trip was capped off with a very special book distribution at Campbell Elementary School, a school where 94 percent of the children come from economically disadvantaged homes. Children were treated to a special “trip” where they boarded a magical cardboard airplane – complete with window seats and belt buckles – took a flight to pick out their books. Librarian Sherry Rojas and Book Spring’s Jill Gonzalez made it a memorable adventure for the children – and for the RIF staff in who joined them on their journey.

The entire trip was made possible thanks to RIF’s longtime partnership with Macy’s. Stay tuned for ways you can support our partnership this summer!

Photo, left to right: Kay Gooch, Kathi Appelt, Lynda Johnson Robb, Joy Fisher Hein; photo by: Jack Plunkett/AP Images for Reading Is Fundamental

It’s Black History Month and we’re excited to highlight five books from our Multicultural Book Collections that bring to light incredible experiences and individuals in African-American history.

What’s more, each book features free, fun activities for kids, helping you and the child in your life to connect even more deeply to the stories.

What Color is My World?: The Lost History of African-American Inventors

First on our list is a New York Times Best-Seller written by the iconic Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. This extremely informative book draws attention to African-American inventors who might otherwise be outshined.

“C’mon genius,” Ella whispered to me. “Name some black scientists.” I’m sure I’d read about a few, but I couldn’t remember a lot of names. Finally, I said, “George Washington Carver.”

Free activities [.pdf]

Martin’s Big Words

This is an easily accessible book for young readers that illustrates Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s challenging fight for equality. Not only are Dr. King’s words moving, but the illustrations are so striking – honored with numerous awards, including  a 2002 Caldecott Honor Book award and a 2002 Coretta Scott King Honor award.

Martin said love when others said hate. “Hate cannot drive out hate. Only love can do that.”

Free activities [.pdf]

The Last Black King of the Kentucky Derby

What a story! As a reader, you can’t help but root for Wink and draw inspiration for conquering big life goals. This tale of overcoming racial obstacles is full of energy and life.

Sweat stung Wink’s eyes. He gritted his teeth and tuned out all the stomping and snorting around him. Leaning forward, he pushed Alan-a-Dale harder. The horse gave him everything it had. Wink-a-Dale crossed the finish line as the rest of the pack thundered past in a blur of browns, blacks and rainbow-colored silks.

Free activities [.pdf]

Wings

This new spin on the classic Greek tale features a young boy with wings, Ikarus, who is bullied by his peers. It’s a beautifully written and illustrated book offering a lesson in the beauty of difference.

I called to Ikarus and he sailed closer to me. I told him what someone should have long ago: “Your flying is beautiful.” For the first time, I saw Ikarus smile. At that moment I forgot about the kids who had laughed at him and me. I was just glad that Ikarus had found his wings again.

Free activities [.pdf]

More Than Anything Else

Sometimes the best way for a kid to understand the magnitude of societal injustices in the 1800s is to hear it from a child’s perspective. This book explains what life was like from the perspective of a young Booker T. Washington, who wants desperately to learn to read but isn’t allowed to enroll in school.

She doesn’t say where she got it. She can’t read it herself. But she knows this is something called the alphabet. She thinks it is a sing-y kind of thing. A song on paper.

Free activities [.pdf]

February is definitely a great time to read these books, but keep going all year long! To get started, check out our Multicultural Book Collection from 2011 and this year’s Multicultural Book Collection, which features books focused on science, technology, engineering, arts and math (or STEAM) themes.

Interested in learning more? Read more about RIF and Multicultural Literacy.

The kids at Savoy Elementary are doing great — despite several interruptions by one spotlight-hogging Moose.  

Moose was joined by Caldecott-winning illustrator Paul O. Zelinsky, who read and drew for the children from his hit “Z is for Moose,” written by Kelly Bingham.

The event was made possible thanks to a partnership between Reading Is Fundamental and the Junior League of Washington. After the reading, the children all got to choose their own, free book to take home before the holidays.

In fact, thanks to the partnership, more than 6,500 children at 20 other D.C. Public Schools will be receiving books this December. They’ll also get special activity pages to take home.

Each of the schools will also receive RIF’s Multicultural Book Collection, featuring “Z is for Moose” and 39 other titles with Science, Technology, Engineering, the Arts and Math themes.

Educators and parents can download free activity pages — developed in line with Common Core Standards  — for each title to help extend the learning experience. By the end of the school year, the children at Savoy will each have five new books of their own.

Through JLW’s Resolution Read program, 100,000 books will be distributed to children in Washington, D.C., honoring the organization’s 100th anniversary.

For more a behind-the-scenes look at the Savoy event, check out RIF’s photo album on Flickr.