Moving PA Forward | Pennsylvania Libraries

On Monday February 13, Pennsylvania's libraries launched PA Forward before a crowd of state legislators, business leaders, statewide association executives, state agency delegates and library supporters at the State Capitol.

Part revolution and part evolution, PA Forward is a dynamic, new movement that redefines Pennsylvania's libraries as a central hub for promoting the five literacies essential to our citizens' success:

     - Basic literacy 
     - Information literacy
     - Civic and social literacy
     - Health literacy
     - Financial literacy

Visit paforward.org to learn more about what makes your local library uniquely qualified to be your community's leader of information, technology, and learning — places that fuel educational and economic opportunity for all.

Happy National Library Week

This week libraries across the nation will celebrate National Library Week. And, in honor of this special occasion, I thought that I would share a recent picture of one of my favorite great nieces at the library. Here's Annabelle Darr at her local library in Glenview, Illinois.

She was reading Mo Willems' Knuffle Bunny Too.

Now, for those of you who may be concerned that it looks like she is stepping on the book, her mom assures me that she had just dropped it and was getting down from her chair to pick it up again.

It's never too early to visit the library and read!

Little House on the Prairie

When I was a kid perhaps one of my favorite series of books was Laura Ingalls Wilder "Little House" books.

My fascination with Wilder's life continues as an adult. I've read a couple of books about her and they were pretty interesting.

Now, in this week's New Yorker, there is a fascinating article about Laura and her daughter Rose Wilder Lane.

Written by Judith Thurman, she recounts some of the key moments in the two women's lives and mentions a number of notable biographies of the family.

If you are a Little House fan, it's worth checking out.

New York Times Columnist Learns Something

Over the holiday weekend, New York Times columnist Nicholas D. Kristof wrote that he was "aghast to learn that American children drop in I.Q. each summer vacation — because they aren’t in school or exercising their brains."

I'm shocked that someone like Kristof wouldn't have the commonsense to know this. But, I guess studies are now documenting what librarians have known all along. If kids aren't reading over the summer, their skills really slide. So much so that kids can lose 2 or 3 months of what they had learned in the previous school year.

That's why our library system's summer reading program is so important. If all our kids were able to learn how to read well and enjoy it, I'll bet there would be a lot fewer problems in society.

Good News about Kids and Reading!

A new study, The Kids & Family Reading Report ™, finds that 75% of kids age 5-17 say that “No matter what I can do online, I’ll always want to read books printed on paper.”

One in four kids age 5-17 say they read books for fun every day and more than half of kids say they read books for fun at least two to three times a week.

That's pretty exciting news for book-lovers everywhere!

Looking to the future, two in three children believe that within the next 10 years, most books which are read for fun will be read digitally – either on a computer or on another kind of electronic device.

89% of kids say that their "favorite books are the ones I picked out myself.” One of the key reasons kids say they don’t read more often is that they have trouble finding books they like. Kids who struggle to find books they like, are far less likely to read for fun daily or even twice a week.

Harry Potter isn't # 1: What are Kids Reading?

According to a report released by Renaissance Learning, kids are reading a wide variety of books, and not just J.K. Rowling's popular Harry Potter series.

What are Kids Reading?, lists the top 20 books read in 2007 by more than 3 million students in grades 1 - 12 who logged on to the Renaissance Learning web site to take quizzes on books that they read during the year. The book lists are available by grade level, region of the country (South, Northeast, Midwest and West) and by gender.

It's fascinating to look at the lists and remember books that I enjoyed as a child. Classics like Green Eggs and Ham, Charlotte's Web and To Kill a Mockingbird are listed along with newer classics such as The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Bridge to Terabithia and The Giver. Judy Blume, J.K. Rowling, Gary Paulsen, Louis Sacher, Jerry Spinelli and Lemony Snicket are all well represented, along with Shakespeare, Bradbury and Steinbeck.

Interestingly, the top book for teens in grades 9-12 was A Child Called It by Dave Pelzer. Pelzer just appeared in Harrisburg on Monday, May 5 at a program sponsored by the Jewish Family Service of Greater Harrisburg. I wonder how many teens were there?