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In November, First Book and its partners the American Federation of Teachers and the Albert Shanker Institute presented the Citizen Power Project; a challenge to educators nationwide to identify, plan, and implement a civic engagement project important to their students, school or community.

Fifteen projects received grants to help turn big plans into big impact.

The projects represent a wide range of civic engagement – from teaching empathy and healthy habits to supporting student voices and helping the environment.

So far, the civic impact of these projects has been phenomenal.

In Framingham, Massachusetts, middle school English teacher Lori DiGisi knows her students don’t always feel empowered. “They feel like the adults rule everything and that they don’t really have choices,” she explains. “The issue I’m trying to solve is for a diverse group of students to believe that they can make a difference in their community.”

Using the First Book Marketplace, Lori and her class chose to read books about young people who did something to change the world — books with diverse characters that each student could identify with. Through stories, Lori’s students have begun to understand that they too can make a difference.

From here, Lori plans to narrow the focus onto the issue of improving working conditions. Students will interview custodians, secretaries, and cafeteria workers in their school to understand what their working conditions are like and ask the all-important question: what can we, as middle schoolers, do to make your working conditions better?

Meanwhile in Malvern, Arkansas, middle school English teacher Claudine James has used the Citizen Power Project to improve upon an already successful program. In 2011, Claudine visited the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC and wanted to bring that experience back to her students.

That year her class studied the Holocaust and put together their own Holocaust Museum in their school and opened it to the public.

The reaction to the museum was something Claudine never expected.

“It was very well received by the community and in fact, we had an opening day reception on a Sunday afternoon and there was no room to even stand.”

Claudine has organized project-based learning initiatives like this every year since. The Malvern community has embraced them, and even come to expect them.

This year, powered by the  Citizen Power Project, Claudine and her class are planning an exhibit called, ‘Writers from Around the World’. They are reading books by authors from all over the globe. Her goal is to promote tolerance and understanding among her students and for them to promote those ideas to the community.

“When my students are presented with problems that other people from other cultures have to overcome, they see the world in a new light,” explains Claudine, “then they go home and spread the word.”

In Newark, New Jersey, kindergarten teacher Racheal Safier has her young students thinking globally. “We wanted to figure out what climate change is,” she explains, “they took a really big interest in how global warming affects animals.”

Racheal has been amazed by her student’s enthusiasm for this topic and the project, but she knows where it comes from. “Books have been the launching point for so many of the ideas generated in my classroom.”

Now that ideas are being launched, Racheal wants to show her class the next step: what actions do we take?

And they have many planned. There will be brochures distributed to parents, a table at the school’s social justice fair, maybe a video, and even letters to the President.

“I want it to be their project — and some of the things they come up with, I am really blown away.”

These three projects are just a snapshot of all the important work educators are doing around the country for the Citizen Power Project. Lori, Claudine, and Racheal are shining examples of the impact that educators can have on their students and their communities.

For educators to create change though students they need access to educational resources. First Book is proud to help provide that access for the Citizen Power Project.

When these 15 projects are completed in early 2017 be sure to check the First Book blog to see videos and pictures, and read more impact stories of impact from across the United States.

 

If you’re an educator serving kids in need, please visit the First Book Marketplace to register and browse our collection of educational resources. Click here to learn more about the Citizen Power Project.

The post Changing Communities with Books: The Citizen Power Project appeared first on First Book Blog.

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Since 2008, nonprofit organization Link to Libraries has served kids in need all across Western Massachusetts and Connecticut. President and Co-Founder Susan Jaye-Kaplan helped start the organization to give kids opportunities to explore our world through books and expand their horizons.

Recently it has become so much more.

Link to Libraries is making use of the basic needs items on the First Book Marketplace and supporting kids beyond providing access to books.

“Link to Libraries is known primarily as a book donation and distribution organization,” says Susan, “but we give far more to our target audience — students in need. We distribute combs, dental hygiene kits, bilingual bookmarks, and more.”

Though books and educational materials are important, basic needs items are also essential for students if they hope to make the most of their education.

One student who participates with Link to Libraries had to miss time at school because of dental surgery, time that can be critical to their development.

“The fact is, this child’s teeth impacted their ability to go to school and learn. If they had had all the dental care products they needed, maybe this doesn’t happen” says Susan.

The basic needs items available through the First Book Marketplace all have an effect on a child’s education. Coats are essential for getting to and from school during winter months. Non-perishable food items prevent kids from losing focus when they get hungry. New t-shirts mean children can play during recess and not worry about a stretch here or a stain there.

Susan knows just how far these kinds of items can go for a child in need. She grew up in a difficult environment and situation herself. She wants to pay forward the kindness that she received as a child growing up in Boston.

“I was fortunate to have had Mrs. Bolton, an assistant librarian at the Boston Public Library, as a child,” Susan, now in her 70s, recalls, “she would bring me all the new books that came into the children’s room and on occasion an apple or carton of milk. My siblings and I sat there after school for many years as it was a safe and warm place to go. We were able to travel the world by reading those wonderful books and yet we never left that couch in the library.”

Thanks to Link to Libraries, many kids will see the world through books and have everything they need for the adventure.

Susan and Link to Libraries are doing impactful work using basic needs items and if you serve children in need, you can too. Please visit the basic needs section of the First Book Marketplace to learn more.

The post ‘Link to Libraries’ Connects Education With Basic Needs appeared first on First Book Blog.

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“Will they still be here tomorrow?” students often ask Morgan VanClief, the librarian at P.A. Shaw Elementary School in Dorchester, MA.

They’re asking about the brand new books that Morgan has been able to bring to the school’s library through generous grants and access to the First Book Marketplace. Many of her students simply aren’t used to having resources available to them on a consistent basis, so they get nervous that the fun and exciting books they see today might not be there tomorrow.

Thanks to Morgan and funding partners like KPMG, they can be confident that the books they love will be available to them day in, day out.

“I think it helps show them that they do deserve to have these resources at school, just like any other kid,” Morgan says.

In just two years as the school’s librarian, Morgan has turned the library into a vibrant and engaging place where students can explore their interests — but it hasn’t always been that way.

“It was literally just an empty room,” Morgan says of the library, “now we have shelves full of books, computers, and even a little theatre area.”

Students are becoming more comfortable using the library regularly and in turn, more comfortable at school. Just by coming to the library every day kids are opening up, advancing reading levels and most importantly, they’re happier.

“One student who was in kindergarten two years ago—he was very reserved, kind of withdrawn, almost sad at school,” Morgan says, “but after two years of constantly coming to the library, he enjoys school now and his family says he is happier at home too.”

For many students, questions about whether or not the books will be available have been replaced by other questions. Questions about a book’s characters, or the setting of their favorite story–questions that will help them learn and grow.

Morgan VanClief’s library was able to receive books through First Book’s partnership with KPMG. If you work with children in need, you can access books and resources for your classroom through the First Book Marketplace.

The post A Library Full of Books & Happiness appeared first on First Book Blog.

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For the many who have asked, Ashlynn Acosta will be making her second appearance as the intuitive teen sleuth in Too Much of a Good Thing, a young adult mystery novel set in Gloucester, Massachusetts. In the intriguing story, our heroine deals with issues of hoarding, ownership, greed and possessiveness that lead to a crime.

The problematic relationship with her single dad, a “just the facts” police detective, has healed through the challenges met and shared in Dead Men Do Tell Tales. Relishing this lively new connection with her dad, Ashlynn suspects any woman seriously claiming her father’s attention. When a beautiful redhead enters the scene, Ashlynn faces the need to solve a mystery in the midst of a budding romance between her father and this most surprising lady. Pressure builds when her buddy group divides into romantic couples and she is paired with a guy who evokes new feelings in her! She is overwhelmed by it all.

Ashlynn’s very first date takes place as she tries to uncover the real mystery in the midst of too much of too many good things. Intuition and real dreamwork are the tools Ashlynn uses to help her understand and act on her new feelings as well as unravel the secrets in a mansion on a hill where a rich old lady has been found dead.

In a Reader’s Guide at the end of the novel, you can learn more about the intuitive tools Ashlynn uses and learn how they can be employed to unlock your own mysteries and solve your own problems.

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For the many who have asked, Ashlynn Acosta will be making her second appearance as the intuitive teen sleuth in Too Much of a Good Thing, a young adult mystery novel set in Gloucester, Massachusetts. In the intriguing story, our heroine deals with issues of hoarding, ownership, greed and possessiveness that lead to a crime.

The problematic relationship with her single dad, a “just the facts” police detective, has healed through the challenges met and shared in Dead Men Do Tell Tales. Relishing this lively new connection with her dad, Ashlynn suspects any woman seriously claiming her father’s attention. When a beautiful redhead enters the scene, Ashlynn faces the need to solve a mystery in the midst of a budding romance between her father and this most surprising lady. Pressure builds when her buddy group divides into romantic couples and she is paired with a guy who evokes new feelings in her! She is overwhelmed by it all.

Ashlynn’s very first date takes place as she tries to uncover the real mystery in the midst of too much of too many good things. Intuition and real dreamwork are the tools Ashlynn uses to help her understand and act on her new feelings as well as unravel the secrets in a mansion on a hill where a rich old lady has been found dead.

In a Reader’s Guide at the end of the novel, you can learn more about the intuitive tools Ashlynn uses and learn how they can be employed to unlock your own mysteries and solve your own problems.

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Miss Billy. Eleanor H. Porter. 1911. Dodo Press. 208 pages.

Miss Billy (1911) is a pleasant romance by Eleanor H. Porter, an author perhaps better known for her children's novel Pollyanna (1913). Billy becomes an orphan around the age of eighteen. She has no living relatives, but she still needs a family, wants a family. She decides to write one of her father's college friends, a friend she was named after. Her name *is* Billy. Her namesake, William Henshaw, is living with his two younger brothers, Cyril and Bertram. (Also making up the household is Pete, the butler, and Dong Ling the cook.) Her letter reveals her eagerness, her expectation, her hope to come and live with the Henshaw family in Boston. Her letter doesn't reveal her gender. I don't think Billy even thought that her name might be ambiguous enough to cause confusion. They send her the message to come, and then comes the big surprise. What will a houseful of men do with an eighteen year old girl? Well, they'll call their sister to beg her to be chaperon for a night or two perhaps. But then they'll see what spinster relative they can bring into their home along with this newcomer and her cat. Aunt Hannah will suit nicely. The first part of the novel focuses on how Miss Billy changes things up for these three men. How she brings life and excitement to them all, making the house feel more like a home. The second part of the novel, however, focuses on the all-too-absent Billy. For after a big misunderstanding, Billy decides to live elsewhere using college and then European travels as an excuse to stay away from the Henshaw brothers. The third part of the novel is set when Billy is twenty-one or twenty-two, she's return to Boston and bought her own home and is establishing herself quite well. It is the third part of the novel that focuses on Billy's love life...

It is a pleasant, enjoyable novel. Miss Billy is vivacious and lovely. And the three brothers are interesting as well. At least two of the three brothers are unsociable and a bit awkward until helped by Miss Billy. Cyril being thought to be interested only in music; Bertram being thought to be interested only in art; William being thought to be interested only in collecting various objects for his huge collection. There are a few good minor characters as well, including the very domestic music teacher. The only minor character I didn't like is the sister, Kate, who is almost always the source of confusion and misunderstanding...

Read Miss Billy

• If you like orphan stories (like Anne of the Island, Daddy Long-Legs, etc.)
• If you like light romances (or clean romances)
• If you've read Pollyanna and want to read more from Eleanor H. Porter

© 2013 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

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The Cape Cod Mystery. Phoebe Atwood Taylor. 1931. Countryman Press. 190 pages.

"'Heat wave hits East,'" Betsey read. "'Prostration record of all time. Mercury soaring.' Well that's gone and torn our peaceful vacation, that has. By tonight we'll have a stack of telegrams a yard high from city-sizzling friends who want to get cooled off." I sighed a little. "I know," I said wearily. As a perennial and thoroughly experienced summer cottager on Cape Cod I sat back to await the inevitable deluge. 

 I really enjoyed Phoebe Atwood Taylor's The Cape Cod Mystery. This is the first Asey Mayo mystery. There are twenty-four in the series spanning twenty years. The Cape Cod Mystery is not narrated by Asey Mayo, in fact, Maso is not introduced until after the body has been discovered and an arrest has been made. It is narrated by Prudence Whitsby; she is a very charming narrator. The novel opens with Prudence and Betsey deciding to invite TWO guests to visit them in their summer cottage. They have received plenty of telegrams already. But. They eventually decide to invite two women who have not asked for an invitation. Betsey selects one guest, Dot, and Prudence selecting the second, Emma. Soon after their arrival, Prudence discovers a dead body. The victim is a writer, Dale Sanborn. He's just recently arrived and rented a cottage, very few people know that "a famous writer" is in their midst. But someone obviously knew where to find him and had reason enough to kill him...

Prudence and Asey Mayo have no idea who the real killer is. But both know beyond a doubt that it isn't the man arrested for the crime, Bill Porter. These two will have to do some detective work. The officials have stopped looking for the murderer since they're sure they've already arrested him... There are plenty of clues, plenty of suspects, plenty of details to try to make a logical narrative of the crime.

I loved so many things about this one! I would definitely recommend this author!

Read The Cape Cod Mystery

• If you love vintage mysteries
• If you enjoy mysteries, American mysteries 

© 2013 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

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Elvin Lim is Assistant Professor of Government at Wesleyan University and author of The Anti-intellectual Presidency, which draws on interviews with more than 40 presidential speechwriters to investigate this relentless qualitative decline, over the course of 200 years, in our presidents’ ability to communicate with the public. He also blogs at www.elvinlim.com. In the article below he looks at the problems Obama is currently facing. See Lim’s previous OUPblogs here.

It is going to be difficult for the President to give us an uplifting State of the Union message next week, because it is in effect going to have to be a confession of the state of the Obama presidency.

Between the attempted bombing on Christmas Day which has become something like Obama’s Katrina, Martha Coakley’s humiliating defeat in MA (and the symbolic extinguishment of the Kennedy torch), and the inauguration of a new era of presidential-press relations in which even the liberal media has turned against their hero, Obama has a very difficult task to perform on Wednesday night. A successful speech requires an accurate diagnosis of what has gone wrong for this presidency. So let’s examine the attempted bombing, Coakley, and the media in turn for the lessons they offer to the President.

The Christmas bombing and Coakley’s defeat in MA are related. (Her poll numbers dropped precipitously after Christmas.) The attempted Christmas bombing reinforced the perception that not only was the administration not focusing on job creation, now there was evidence that it had taken its eye off the ball on homeland security. The President must give us reason again to believe that he has his priorities right, and he has his eye on the target – jobs. To some extent he’s already smartened up. Knowing that the President cannot turn around the jobless numbers any time soon, his advisers have told him to get out to show people that he feels our pain. And that’s why Obama has tuned back in, and on recent days has been on the road to vindicate populist rage at Wall Street. He should be mindful though that he is the President, not a traveling salesman.

Why didn’t Obama’s last minute campaigning for Coakley make a positive difference? Well, his comment about Scott Brown and his truck didn’t help, a mistake he should have learnt after his remarks last year in San Francisco about bitter people clinging on to their guns. There is nothing like liberal condescension that turns off Republicans and Independents, and the President needs to show humility and contrition in his speech on Wednesday.

There is an endemic sense in the media that Massachussetts. Yet to give to one state the power to speak for the nation is patently at odds with our constitution, though it would seem that our pundits prefer to give weight to statistical sampling over constitutional propriety. Even liberal journalists are turning against him now, because no one will stand forever for the losing team, liberal bias or not. Obama has to stay focused on the big picture, remembering that while Massachusetts spoke, the nation did not. His job on Wednesday is not to be lost in non-generalizable minutiae, but to inform us of the State of the Union.

So here’s the good news. For all the spate of unfortunate events the Obama administration had to endure since Christmas, it is still a golden rule of politics that no president polls well when the economy is in the doldrums, so it may have been this

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Shelby from Massachusetts sent in this tale of an encounter with a ghost that communicated through a computer's keyboard.

Hey Jason!

My name is Shelby and I love your website! This is what happened to me on a "normal" Massachusetts evening.

My dad works with computers. In fact, he is a computer freak! Well I was on my computer and suddenly the screen went black! And boy I was mad! I had worked night and day on a speech for a group I am in. I called my dad and told him what happened.

"Just do that and it should work again." he said after telling me what to do. But it didn't. So I sat in a chair in the room and read your book (What a shocker, I never put that thing down). I was just finishing "My House is Bleeding" when...

Click click click tap tap

"What the...?" I looked around.

Tap tap click tap

The keys on the computer were typing something. 'Hello' It said. I was freaking out. "Hi..." I said nervously.

Tap tap click tap click click tap

'My name is Emily' It said. 'Do not be afraid I will not hurt you'

"Umm, good to know... Did you live here?" I asked feeling a little better.

Tap tap tap

'Yes. Once, but I died of Yellow Fever when I was only twelve.'

"Oh. Sorry to hear that. How do you know how to use the computer?"

Tap tap click tap click

'I have watched you and your family use it. I only trust you though."

"Okay. Well I invite you to stay with me here. We are a nice family, Emily." I said finally calling the ghost by its name. "See you later. Bye."

Tap tap click click tap click

'Thank you for being so welcoming. Take care.'

I ran downstairs to tell my mom what had just happened. But she won't believe me (I hope you do Jason!). To this day Emily will often visit me. She can tell when I am depressed, angry or happy. She now is like a friend to me. I hope she will never leave me.

Thanks for listening Jason.

Shelby

Thanks for sharing your story, Shelby. Kinda gives a whole new meaning to the term "ghost writing"!

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The one name linking all of these is Richmond.

 

1.       Dave Richmond, bass player and founder member of 1960s band Manfred Mann.  He left the group after ‘5-4-3-2-1′ and then, after a time with the John Barry Seven, became a session musician.  As such he has played with, amongst others, Dusty Springfield, Cliff Richard and Elton John.  He was also on the controversial (at the time) ‘Je T’aime’ by Serge Gainsborough and Jane Birkin.  For the last 21 years he has played bass on the theme for television’s ‘Last of the Summer Wine’.  Dave Richmond’s home page

2.       Richmond, the capital of the Commonwealth of Virginia, U.S.  Virginia is one of four states in the U.S. which use the term commonwealth in their names, the others are Massachusetts, Kentucky and Pennsylvania.  Richmond, which stands on the James River, was also the capital of the Confederacy from July 1861.

3.       Richmond Palace was a royal palace on The Green, Richmond, Surrey, England, U.K. in what is now part of London, between 1327 and 1649.  It was built by Henry VII on the site of the former Palace of Shene (a.k.a. Sheen or Sheane) after a disastrous fire in 1497 and renamed Richmond Palace.  Elizabeth I spent a lot of time at Richmond and died there in 1603.

Richmond Palace
Image via Wikipedia

4.       Richmond Arquette is the sibling of Alexis, David, Patricia and Rosanna Arquette.  He is a minor character actor who is perhaps best remembered as the delivery driver, who unwittingly delivers the box containing the head, at the end of the film ‘Se7en’ (1995).
 

5.       Richmond Castle, North Yorkshire, England, U.K.  Norman fortress built on a rocky promontory overlooking the River Swale and dating from shortly after the Norman conquest.  Now over 900 years old it is in the care of English Heritage.

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The one name linking all of these is Richmond.

 

1.       Dave Richmond, bass player and founder member of 1960s band Manfred Mann.  He left the group after ‘5-4-3-2-1′ and then, after a time with the John Barry Seven, became a session musician.  As such he has played with, amongst others, Dusty Springfield, Cliff Richard and Elton John.  He was also on the controversial (at the time) ‘Je T’aime’ by Serge Gainsborough and Jane Birkin.  For the last 21 years he has played bass on the theme for television’s ‘Last of the Summer Wine’.  Dave Richmond’s home page

2.       Richmond, the capital of the Commonwealth of Virginia, U.S.  Virginia is one of four states in the U.S. which use the term commonwealth in their names, the others are Massachusetts, Kentucky and Pennsylvania.  Richmond, which stands on the James River, was also the capital of the Confederacy from July 1861.

3.       Richmond Palace was a royal palace on The Green, Richmond, Surrey, England, U.K. in what is now part of London, between 1327 and 1649.  It was built by Henry VII on the site of the former Palace of Shene (a.k.a. Sheen or Sheane) after a disastrous fire in 1497 and renamed Richmond Palace.  Elizabeth I spent a lot of time at Richmond and died there in 1603.

Richmond Palace
Image via Wikipedia

4.       Richmond Arquette is the sibling of Alexis, David, Patricia and Rosanna Arquette.  He is a minor character actor who is perhaps best remembered as the delivery driver, who unwittingly delivers the box containing the head, at the end of the film ‘Se7en’ (1995).
 

5.       Richmond Castle, North Yorkshire, England, U.K.  Norman fortress built on a rocky promontory overlooking the River Swale and dating from shortly after the Norman conquest.  Now over 900 years old it is in the care of English Heritage.

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The site does come with a warning, however: This game may make you smarter.

It can also help you:

• Formulate your ideas better
• Write better papers, emails and business letters
• Speak more precisely and persuasively
• Comprehend more of what you read
• Read faster because you comprehend better
• Get better grades in high school, college and graduate school
• Score higher on tests like the SAT, GRE, LSAT and GMAT
• Perform better at job interviews and conferences
• Sell yourself, your services, and your products better
• Be more effective and successful at your job

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