Read All About It!

To our avid fans:

First of all, I have to apologize. I’ve redefinied “slackerdom” when it comes to posting student work on Fridays. However, I have turned a corner, and Fridays are back on, full swing!

This week, Open Books was fortunate enough to do a little SLAM poetry with students from both local campuses of Lighthouse Academies: Bronzeville Lighthouse and W. Gary Lighthouse.  Here is a favorite piece from each school. I hope that you enjoy them!

My Hood

By Cassandra (W. Gary Lighthouse)

If my neighborhood were a color it would be pink and yellow

Like block parties, sleepovers, get togethers.

At the park I always see kids and pets.

I like when people are out of town for the summer

I dislike fighting and disagreements

G.I., West Side, Tarry Town, Crazy.

The sounds of motorcycles, kids, cars

The people are Kenny, Pumpa, David, Deja, Jamare

Something unique is people and ideas, bikes, and four-wheelers

My favorite thing to eat from Dairy Queen is large ice cream cones.

I go to sleep and listen to music.

I feel alone sometimes.

Animals surround my house a lot

Often I think of calling animal control when animals run wild

There is a scent of fresh air and fireworks.

My neighborhood makes me happy and sad; it really depends on the day of the week.




Who Am I

By Essence (Bronzeville Lighthouse)

The streets,

Everyday families strugglin’,

Need money, food, clothing,

So angry they take it out on the ones they love.

Kids, teenagers, turning to the streets,

selling drugs to survive.

And I wish I could fix it all,

but I’m not a god at all,

and I wish I could go back in time and stop it all.

I am Essence

My name means a new beginning.

If you stepped in my shoes you would feel anger boiling inside of you like lava,

because I don’t express my anger and sadness because I am afraid.

I want to change the way I feel by expressing myself.

I have a dream to become a famous singer.

I paint myself red for anger, throwing stuff.

I am a sad girl who may look happy on the outside but is sad on the inside.

If you stepped in my shoes you would see how I feel and how I want to cry

because I want my mother, who is lost in her own world.

I want to share knowledge and intelligence with the world.

I believe that people who live on Earth will be impressed.

I am human because I stay true to myself.

I wonder how it feels to be in somebody else’s shoes.

I think of my mother for strength.

My mother helps me think that I can overcome anything.

My granny believes in me.

I am Essence

Yes, I can change the world.

Hello! My name is Jennifer Plaskota — I’m getting a bit of a late start to my summer internship here at Open Books but I’m very excited to finally be here!

People often ask how I found out about Open Books, but to be honest, I’m not exactly sure. I can say that I knew right away that I wanted to be involved. While I’ve always  been interested in education and working with children and youth, I became particularly interested in literacy while serving as a grant writer for a social service nonprofit in Wilmington, Delaware. As I researched the issues affecting our clients, I felt that the most effective solutions often revolved around helping others help themselves, which would not often be possible without the abilities to read and write fluently.

When I returned to the Chicago area just under a year ago, I channeled this passion for literacy into my new position as a reading aide at an elementary school in Romeoville, where I am also working as a teacher’s aide in a special education classroom for the next few weeks. I have realized that I love teaching, and hope to earn my teaching certification in bilingual or special education this summer. I’m grateful for this opportunity to serve at Open Books — I think the experience will compliment my role as a teacher and I’m happy to contribute to promoting literacy in Chicago!

�Welcome to ReadKiddoRead.com� You�ve found your way here because you�ve decided to take your kid�s reading future into your own hands. Something told you the only way to get kids to read was to give them great books, cool books, books they would absolutely, positively love. These are very, very special books that kids will gobble up and ask for more. If your kids get a few of these books under their belts they�ll be well on their way to becoming readers for life. I promise you.�
-James Patterson, readkiddoread.com

James Patterson�s website ReadKiddoRead.com addresses a problem that has proved to be troublesome for parents and teachers alike: making their kids and students interested in reading. The site, which was started when Patterson realized his own son was having a hard time being interested in reading, suggests books for four different age groups that are guaranteed to make kids into lifelong readers. The books cover the toddler age (with �Great Illustrated Books�) to the tween age (with �Great Advanced Reads�). Patterson�s site also breaks these categories up into genres, with each book having its own detailed description along with where to find the book, critic reviews, themes, and books you might like if you liked this book.

James Patterson's ReadKiddoRead.com

This site is great for parents and teachers because it takes the guesswork out of trying to find books they think may interest their children or students. Patterson and his team have sifted through many children�s books to find not only the best of the best, but also the most interesting and books that will for sure make kids want to keep on reading once they turn that last page. Patterson does a wonderful job of also letting teachers and parents know as much as they can about a book without actually reading it, even highlighting the main themes of the book so parents can know what the book could teach their children. Patterson�s website really is the one-stop site for creating lifelong readers in children.

Over the weekend, I was sitting on the train when a woman seated a level below me caught my attention through the corner of my eye. She was reading.

However, it was no ordinary book that she was reading. In fact, it was not really a book at all, but rather the Amazon Kindle– the first widely popular wireless electronic reading device of its kind.

This woman was the first �reader of the future� that I have ever encountered, and I felt strangely fascinated. Contently reading in office attire amidst the grumbling vibration of mass transit, the bustling cityscape blurred behind her. She yawned and casually paused, as if to turn a page. Tilting her head back down to the glossy screen, she continued to read. As I awkwardly hovered over her with a glassy stare, I realized that there is nothing strange about reading electronic copies of books. I also realized that I probably looked pretty freakish myself with my eyes so shamelessly transfixed on her.

It seems that the digitizing of books is inevitable and that someday paper copies may be considered mere relics of the past. As pixels begin to replace pages, a few of us may still feel a bit attached to conventional books. Maybe it�s the sound of paper rubbing together as you separate them with your fingertips. Or the feeling of a crisp corner on the tip of a page as you turn it, pressing tan pages down with your hand and running your palm up and down its skin until you can feel the notches in its spine. Or it could be the character that a book gets as its pages get folded or torn and its cover soiled with dirt and grease.

But if it�s simply the smell of books that we cling to, maybe we�re in luck (thanks to Smell of Books).

-Matt

Hooray! After a year of anticipation and months of getting ready, the Midwest’s largest literary festival starts tomorrow — and Open Books is absolutely delighted to be part of it!

As the Chicago Tribune explains, “the Printers Row Lit Fest was founded in 1985 by the Near South Planning Board to attract visitors to the Printers Row neighborhood (once the city’s bookmaking hub). By 2002, it had grown to five city blocks (on Dearborn, from Congress to Polk), attracting more than 200 booksellers from across the country displaying new, used and antiquarian books, and featuring seven stages with more than 100 free literary programs. As part of its ongoing commitment to the written word and its support of literacy and literary endeavor, the Chicago Tribune purchased the Printers Row Book Fair in 2002 from the Near South Planning Board. Recently renamed to be the Printer’s Row Lit Fest, it is considered the largest free outdoor literary event in the Midwest-drawing more than 125,000 book lovers to the two-day showcase.” Amazing!

Starting tomorrow, more than 200 volunteers sporting Open Books shirts will be on hand to help make the Fest run smoothly. In addition, we’ll be offering 3 writing workshops (prose, poetry, and professional), taking the stage for an hour to share some of our favorite student writing from the last year, and offering thousands of books for sale plus a book donation station in our tents next to the Center Stage. Admission to all of this great stuff is FREE and we’d love to see you there! And, with that, off we go to start setting up.

See you tomorrow!