Multicultural Children's Book Day

#ReadYourWorld

10 Diverse Reading Programs for Summertime Fun and Learning

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Guest post from Janelle Diller

The last few months of distance learning have been a challenge. If you’re lucky, your kids stayed with the program and will be fine when the new school year starts in September–whatever that looks like in your corner of the world. But if you’re typical, well, let’s face it. The last few months have been a roller coaster, but in this case, it was more scary than fun. So how do you make sure your kids will be ready for school in the fall? The best way is to just keep them reading. Fortunately, we at Pack-n-Go Girls have some great suggestions for summer reading programs that will give them just a bit more of an incentive:

10 Diverse Reading Programs for Summertime Fun and Learning

free summer reading programs

The Public Library:

We love the public library! They all have a summer reading program to get kids in the library and get them reading. If you’re new to your area, here’s a great site to find the closest library to you. As states open up, libraries are too, even if for the moment they’re only doing curbside pick up and drop off.

Your library is small? No worries! Most public libraries are part of a larger lending library system, which gives you access to books that aren’t part of your local library’s collection. A great place to start is with the book lists on Multicultural Children’s Book Day. It has a multitude of book lists that can provide the windows and doors for new and important conversations at home, especially about these challenging times.

And don’t forget to look for Pack-n-Go Girls books, ebooks, and audiobooks at your library. If your library hasn’t discovered Pack-n-Go yet, they’ll appreciate the nudge from you to add the series to their collection. (So will we!)

Reading Rewards:

Create your own reading program with your own incentives at Reading Rewards.  Kids can log the books they’re reading, take quizzes, and even write reviews. It’s like Goodreads for kids, but with lots of added support for teachers and parents.

Pizza Hut Book It!

Track and reward the reading your kids do for June, July, and August in Pizza Hut’s Book It! digital dashboard. When they meet their monthly reading goal, they’ll receive a free Personal Pan Pizza from Pizza Hut. Pizza Hut also is sharing fun activities and book recommendations each week to keep the fun going throughout the summer.

Barnes & Noble

With Barnes & Noble’s summer reading program, kids need to read at least eight books and record them in a reading journal along with their favorite part of each book. Their reward is a free book from a predetermined list at a Barnes & Noble store.

Scholastic Reading Program:

The Scholastic Reading Program has been revamped for 2020. Kids will now go to scholastic.com/homebase to create their account. Instead of logging reading minutes, kids will now be encouraged to track their Reading Streaks. A Reading Streak is the number of days in a row that a student checks in. If they skip a day, it starts over. The really cool thing? For every two days in a row kids track their reading streaks, Scholastic will donate six books to kids in areas with limited or no access to books. Nice!

Books-a-Million Summer Reading Adventure

Who doesn’t love Captain Underpants and Dog Man? This summer, Books-A-Million teams up with author Dav Pilkey for a summer reading adventure. Kids can choose four books from the Summer Reading Adventure section either in the store or online. Then they write about the books in the Summer Reading Adventure Log Book. By showing their completed log to a Books-A-Million employee, they receive a free Dog Man baseball cap.

Chuck E. Cheese:

Reading earns kids free tokens at Chuck E. Cheese every time they read. Just print out the bookmarks, which are each worth ten free tokens, and bring it in to claim your free tokens.

Half Price Books:

Half Price Books reading program asks kids to read fifteen minutes a day and keep a reading log. After reading 300 minutes, kids can take their log into a Half Price store and get $5.00 in credit.

Amazon:

If you have a Kindle, Amazon always has a long list of free books. You don’t need to keep a list or write a report. You only need to hit the download button. But you knew that already, didn’t you?

Pack-n-Go Girls

As always, you can take your kids on a reading adventure around the world with Pack-n-Go Girls. No masks or social distancing required–and they’re MUCH cheaper than a plane ticket!

If you haven’t discovered the audiobooks, you’re going to love how Kae Denino brings the characters alive. Mystery of the Ballerina Ghost, Mystery of the Secret Room, Mystery at the Christmas Market, Mystery of the Troubled Toucan, Mystery of the Min Min Lights, and Mystery of the Thief in the Night are all available and are Whispersynced to the ebook version. It’s a great way for reluctant readers to build their skills without the stress of decoding every word.

Whatever you do, we hope you–and your kids–have a fun summer of turning pages and discovering new worlds.

 

Diversity in kid literature | Your experience matters too, little one

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Guest Post from author Connie-Vee Hawkins

People often say I was born with a camera in my hand. I loved taking my parent’s camera and snapping pictures. I saw each picture as a story. As I grew older, everyone realized I was indeed the storyteller of the family. Storytelling is therapeutic. It helps us to process the negative experience and immortalize a positive experience. Many experiences turned into stories. Like the one I wrote while in elementary school. It was called The Wrong Turn. I later understood it was my way of processing moving to a predominantly white neighboorhood in the ‘70s.

Just about every day, my sisters and I were subjected to insults at school or when we walked home from school. “jungle bunny” “jigaboo” “spear chucker” and the constant hearing of the “n” word were all foreign to me. Never head that ending with a hard “r”-although it was similar to what I heard on the streets in Watts, this was different…painful. Maybe it was the look in the faces of my White schoolmates and their parents when they said it? Maybe.

Mr. Hayes was my 5th-grade teacher. He was a White man that suffered from the Marfan syndrome, which made him this long-haired, extremely tall and lanky hippy-like man. Coming from Watts made him even extra particular to me. I really liked him. I being his only black student made him take an interest in me, I think he was just as curious about me as I was him.

“Have you ever read the book, Sounder?” he asked me one day. I hadn’t. He then handed me the book. I read it twice over the weekend. I was so moved by the characters and the experience which, although in two different worlds we were experiencing the same thing. When I finished the book, I wanted more. I wanted to read about my experience. The next book he gave me was, The Miracle Worker-The Helen Keller Story. Although she was a White lady, I related to her. Being the outcast. Different from her peers. Misunderstood and struggling to assimilate. Assimilation was survival. After reading her book, I started writing my own stories. I was in 5th grade.

As an adult, I became the mother of two children. Of course, I wanted to read stories to them that was like my experience. Stories that valued family, hard work, unity, and more. I wanted my girls to see characters that looked like them and their experience. So, instead of going on the exhaustive hunt for these books, I started writing them myself. I even tried to illustrate them. They loved them.

I’m not sure if people understand just how valuable it is for kids to see diversity in kid literature. It’s like, the world is looking at you and saying…hey, your life matters too. Your experience matters, little one.

As a mother, I wanted to share with my children my experience as a nature lover. I grew up camping in the Angeles Forest and although we often experience racism, it was always overshadowed by the beauty of nature. I discovered, there were tons of books dealing with, cooking, sibling-rivalry, and sharing, but nothing on nature with black families. So I started writing short stories for my children’s bed-time stories that featured topics that included characters that were nature lovers or loved hiking, camping and more. It just seemed to make storytime extra special. Most of those stories are still on longhand on some paper in a box by my bed. But I vowed to share them with the world. One book at a time.

Adventure one: Up and Out, is just the beginning. Much more to come. 🙂

About Connie-Vee

Connie-Vee HawkinsWriting was my first connection to creative expression. I have always been fascinated at how words strung together in a story can awaken one’s imaginations while inspiring us to live a better life.

When my children were younger, I enjoyed reading folktales with a positive, message-driven narrative—only I wanted to see more characters that looked like my daughters and the children of color in my community. I began writing those stories myself and eventually shared them at local schools, where they were well received. Now I’m making them available in paperback, e-book format and audio version—one story at a time.

“Connie-Vee is a talented storyteller and gifted, generous teacher. It was a pleasure to work with her. She has the courage to try to make the world a better place by celebrating diversity while also showing the humanity and kindness that can unite us all.” –Robert Reese, Author