Chapter 10: October News from Madison Reading Project

It’s been an action packed month at our book center! We have been out in the community attending family engagement events, supporting educators and attending Halloween and other fall festivities! We love wrapping up our bus visits for the year with a full month of fun!

We kicked off our after school STEAM program and are excited to continue to grow our partnership with MSCR elementary after school sites. Our early literacy programs had a huge month as well, reaching over 10,000 kids in our Imagination Library program in addition to packing and delivering over 7,780 books to young readers in Dane County through our My First Pages program. In addition, we installed 5 little free libraries that provide kids and families with 24/7 access to great books.

Our team was thrilled to receive a needle moving gift from the Junior League of Madison in support of our new bus that will arrive in the spring of 2024 as well as the growth of our organization.

Our Year-to-Date Impact

Books given: 87,526
Kids impacted: 75,775
Community partners served: 195

Our Impact Since 2014

Books given: 464,878
Kids impacted: 295,750

My First Pages Celebrates 2 Years!

Our early literacy program, My First Pages, was developed two years ago with a goal of reaching Dane County’s youngest readers and their caregivers to provide high quality books that represent the community we serve. Since then we’ve hired an Early Literacy Specialist, partnered with Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library to get over 186,000 books to Dane County kids, and have distributed tens of thousands of multilingual books to local children and their families through projects and partnerships with over 30 local agencies. In January 2023, we began a project to provide a book, reading tips, and resources to every baby born at Meriter and St Mary’s hospitals, totaling nearly 7,000 births a year!

Educator Resources

November is Native American Heritage Month! We are thrilled to have collaborated with emi aguilar from IndigenizingArtEd earlier this year. You can view their blog post here.

You can also read a great conversation about teaching Native American History on the Lee and Low blog with an editor from the Cherokee Nation. It gives tips on how to incorporate the books, The People Shall Continue, and Indian No More, into your curriculum, and how to center Indigenous history all year long.

If you’re struggling with how to discuss current events with kids, know that you’re not alone. Teachers are often some of the most trusted people in children’s lives, and so it’s not uncommon for them to ask questions about what’s happening in the world. This article, A student asked a NYC teacher which side she’s on in the Israel-Hamas war. Here’s what she said, has been circulating and may resonate with you.

Do your kids have basic media literacy skills? With kids having access to so much information, it’s so crucial that they’re taught how to sift through information to find truth. This resource was shared by our friends at Little Justice Leaders and is worth reviewing.

Books are also great tools for facilitating these types of conversations with kids. Some of our favorite books include, Facts vs. Opinions vs. Robots, and Can You Believe It? How to Spot Fake News and Find the Facts. The team behind, Can You Believe It?, created a teaching guide that you can print and use right away!