National Children’s Book Week is May 11 – 17. While many will participate in this celebration because of their love of books, I’d like to remind teachers, librarians, and parents to be on the lookout for reluctant readers, especially boys.
As I child, I did a pretty good job of covering up how much I despised reading. Because of this background, I understand the reluctant reader particularly well, and now write action-adventures & mysteries that can reach these children. The following quote, from the mother of two sons, spotlights how my books reach out to and, in many cases, change reluctant boy readers into avid readers.
“I can't believe it .... as the concerned mother of two struggling readers... who is also the daughter of a children's librarian ... I think I have purchased EVERY book recommended for reluctant readers HOWEVER, they have ALL fallen short UNTIL today. We were able to purchase one of your books ... and we're hooked!!! Any way to convince you that we need you to write faster?? I can't thank you enough for your efforts.”
This year, use the National Children’s Book Week to reach out to a reluctant reader. You’ll change his or her life forever.
Max Elliot Anderson
"A great nation is a reading nation."
In a small library on a November afternoon in 1921, a stiff-lipped lady was busy with her scissors, shearing off the bottom third of Jessie Willcox Smith's poster for Children's Book Week. A poster showing books scattered in joyous abandon on the floor was more than she could bear to display!
Our attitude toward children and their enjoyment of books has undergone considerable change since that day. The creation and growth of Children's Book Week has both resulted from and influenced this transformation.
Since 1919, Children's Book Week has been celebrated nationally in schools, libraries, bookstores, clubs, private homes-any place where there are children and books. Educators, librarians, booksellers, and families have celebrated children's books and the love of reading with storytelling, parties, author and illustrator appearances, and other book related events.
It all began with the idea that children's books can change lives. In 1913, Franklin K. Matthiews, the librarian of the Boy Scouts of America, began touring the country to promote higher standards in children's books. He proposed creating a Children's Book Week, which would be supported by all interested groups: publishers, booksellers, and librarians.
Mathiews enlisted two important allies: Frederic G. Melcher, the visionary editor of Publishers Weekly (the publishing industry trade journal), and Anne Carroll Moore, the Superintendent of Children's Works at the New York Public Library and a major figure in the library world. With the help of Melcher and Moore, in 1916 the American Booksellers Association and the American Library Association cooperated with the Boy Scouts in sponsoring a Good Book Week.
At the 1919 ABA convention, the Association committed to the organization of an annual Children's Book Week. A few months later, the official approval of the American Library Association was also secured during its first Children's Librarians session.
In 1944, the newly-established Children's Book Council assumed responsibility for administering Children's Book Week. In 2008, Children’s Book Week moved from November to May. At that time, responsibility for Children’s Book Week, including planning official events and creating original materials, was transferred to Every Child a Reader, the philanthropic arm of the children’s publishing industry.
The need for Children’s Book Week today is as essential as it was in 1919, and the task remains the realization of Frederic Melcher’s fundamental declaration: “A great nation is a reading nation.”
At a recent meeting with my publisher, I was presented with a copy of a companion workbook for one of my action-adventures & mysteries, written especially for boys. Now homeschoolers or teachers in the classroom can combine these exciting stories, that boys and girls love to read, with solid teaching materials.
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