{"id":17686,"date":"2018-03-04T12:01:35","date_gmt":"2018-03-04T17:01:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/?p=17686"},"modified":"2018-03-04T08:45:33","modified_gmt":"2018-03-04T13:45:33","slug":"african-american-read","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/2018\/03\/african-american-read\/","title":{"rendered":"African-American Read-In"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last month was chock full of holidays: Groundhog\u2019s Day, Mardi Gras, Valentine\u2019s Day, Chinese New Year, President\u2019s Day and, of course, Black History Month.\u00a0 Each year, I strive to create an impactful Black History Month event for the largely African-American community in which I work.<\/p>\n

To be honest, my results have been hit or miss.\u00a0 I had a wonderfully successful program focusing on Jacqueline Woodson\u2019s Show Way<\/em> where we discussed the book and created our own family teens.\u00a0 I then struck out with a similarly structured program focused on Ron\u2019s Big Mission<\/em> by Rose Blue.<\/p>\n

Then I was alerted to the African-American Read-In (AARI) that a neighboring library system held yearly.\u00a0 The Read-In is a creation of the National Council of the Teachers of English<\/a> (NCTE).\u00a0 NCTE\u2019s website claims that the AARI \u201cis the nation\u2019s first and oldest event dedicated to diversity in literature.\u201d\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0It was founded in 1990 by NCTE\u2019s Black Caucus and thus far has reached over 6 million people throughout the years.<\/p>\n

NCTE\u2019s website has an AARI landing page<\/a> that links to a toolkit to help you throw an event, a place to register your event online, and more.<\/p>\n

On February 8th<\/sup>, my branch held its second African-American Read-In.\u00a0 While the event is still relatively small (we have had about 20 people each year), this year I was thrilled when several middle schoolers decided to volunteer to read out loud to the group, while last year, mainly teachers and principals who attended participated in the reading.\u00a0 I had put out several works from African-American poets, and they gravitated to Langston Hughes.\u00a0 We even had two third graders who acted out \u201cIf You\u2019re Happy and You Know It\u201d from Let\u2019s Clap, Jump, Sing & Shout; Dance Spin & Turn It Out!: Games, Songs & Stories from an African American Childhood,<\/em> collected by Patricia McKissack.\u00a0 The young people really took ownership this year, and I was thrilled.<\/p>\n

Has anyone else had success with hosting an African-American Read-In?\u00a0 I would love to hear further ideas.<\/p>\n

******************************************************************<\/p>\n

\"Head
Maria Trivisonno (courtesy of guest blogger)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Maria Trivisonno is a Children\u2019s Librarian at the Warrensville Heights Branch of Cuyahoga County Public Library, and can be contacted at mtrivisonno@cuyahogalibrary.org<\/a>.\u00a0 She loves being an aunt, reading and discussing kids\u2019 books, and all things Star Wars.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Please note that as a guest post, the views expressed here do not represent the official position of ALA or ALSC.<\/em><\/p>\n

If you\u2019d like to write a guest post for the ALSC Blog, please contact Mary Voors, ALSC Blog manager, at\u00a0alscblog@gmail.com<\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last month was chock full of holidays: Groundhog\u2019s Day, Mardi Gras, Valentine\u2019s Day, Chinese New Year, President\u2019s Day and, of course, Black History Month.\u00a0 Each year, I strive to create an impactful Black History Month event for the largely African-American community in which I work. To be honest, my results have been hit or miss.\u00a0 I had a wonderfully successful program focusing on Jacqueline Woodson\u2019s Show Way where we discussed the book and created our own family teens.\u00a0 I then struck out with a similarly structured program focused on Ron\u2019s Big Mission by Rose Blue. Then I was alerted to the African-American Read-In (AARI) that a neighboring library system held yearly.\u00a0 The Read-In is a creation of the National Council of the Teachers of English (NCTE).\u00a0 NCTE\u2019s website claims that the AARI \u201cis the nation\u2019s first and oldest event dedicated to diversity in literature.\u201d\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0It was founded in 1990 by…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":"","_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[134,38],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-guest-blogger","category-programming-ideas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/38"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17686"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17686\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}