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Last week Kingston Springs Elementary School experienced a flash flood and six feet of water submerged their entire school. There was a crew there today even as we wrote working to clean up and salvage items that were not damaged. Unfortunately, the news from that crew has been grim - due to the contaminated flood water there will not be much saved. Sue's library, for all intents and purposes, did lose the entire collection of books. Due to the damage, Kingston Springs Elementary School will not be re-opening until next year.

Their library had 8500 books and most were destroyed by the water. The only books they have left are the 200 or so that children had checked out over the weekend.

They need books! If you have a couple copies of your own books lying around, or have some gently used books, they can use them. Even duplicates can be used in classrooms.

The Cheatham County Board of Education is taking monetary donations and supply donations. If you wish to make a monetary donation please mail checks to:

Cheatham County Board of Education
102 Elizabeth St.
Ashland City, TN 37015

The checks need to be made payable to Kingston Springs Elementary School and please indicate on the memo line where the donation should be applied (i.e. library, etc)

Donations of books or supplies can be mailed or brought to the following location:

Kingston Springs Elementary Donation Room 23
c/o Harpeth Middle School
170 Harpeth View Trail
Kingston Springs, TN 37082

I will be getting books together to donate to the school. So I'm accept donations and take yours as well :)

Thanks :)

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Yesterday I received a message of thanks from a friend, whose two-month-old son offered me the pleasure of giving him his very first book. “He didn’t take his eyes off it the whole time I was reading it to him,” his father announced, with pardonable pride– and I felt an immense happiness, knowing that he chose to read it to his son right away, rather than waiting until “he was old enough.”

The book my friend read to his child is not a typical first book for a baby, but it has bright, vibrant, full-page illustrations and short, bouncy verses which make it a first cousin to Mother Goose, that venerable choice for an infant’s introduction to the world of books. It’s the color,the music and cadence of the words, and the closeness and reassurance of being held that makes the experience of reading be a special time for a very new person who can’t yet speak for himself. And as far as understanding goes, who really knows how much–or how little– an infant can comprehend?

Snuggling with your father, hearing his voice directed especially toward you, seeing the glow of colors and the excitement of new shapes as the pages turn, what could be better than that? Nothing, except perhaps for the delight of choosing a book that can help this experience be as good as it can   be–and then hearing about it later from a happy parent.

Reading aloud to children is an act that needs all the encouragement it can get. We may not all be lucky enough to have children we can read to, but we can all give books so that other people can do this–and as early in a child’s life as is possible. When we give books, we give love.