(upbeat music) - Hello, and welcome to The Journal, I'm Steve Kendall.

Reading is the foundation for all of learning.

And we're gonna talk about a program at Bowling Green State University called Lit & Learn, and also 1BookBG, which is a community reading project.

Joining me for the segment as we open up Journal today, our BGSU student, Amanda Barnes from university libraries at Bowling Green, Joe Prince, and also Dr. Colleen Boff.

Colleen, talk a little bit about Lit & Learn for people who aren't maybe familiar with the program, but give us kind of the background on Lit & Learn.

- Sure, I'd be happy to thank you, Steve.

So Joe and I work in the Curriculum Resource Center over at Jerome Library.

It's the K through 12 collection that supports primarily the education majors.

And so we have a strong philosophy in our shop about creating a culture of reading.

And this was really born out of an experience where I went on a little field trip to an area school district, and I had a tour of a new school that was built and it was a middle school.

And in every nook and cranny of this middle school, there was a culture of reading going on.

There were children hanging out on bean bags reading, there were little libraries in every single classroom.

It was a culture reading that I had never experienced as a student in K12, but that was a long time ago, (laughing) but it was just remarkable to see and then I went to the high school and I saw an even greater reading culture at a high school level.

Floor to ceiling, custom-built bookshelves in classrooms and students talking to each other about books, engaging with the teacher.

And it just so ignited my interest.

And I came back and like Joe and I are want to do we gabbed about it and brainstormed this fun program called Lit & Learn, where we talked with the faculty of the College of Education in Human Development about creating this co-curricular program.

So we recognize that our faculty are busy at work, integrating, reading and literacy and diversity of books into every classroom with our undergraduate students.

But we wanted to call implement and go a little bit further than that.

So we created this program and essentially what the Lit & Learn program is, is students volunteer to do it on their own time outside of class.

And they participate in four seminars and two book clubs and an author visit sometime during the course of their four years here with us.

And then the entire topic is really how do you create a classroom library and a culture of reading?

And so really what they have the entire four years to complete it.

And if they do complete all of those elements, they do get a monetary-- - Oh, okay.

- Incentive to start their own classroom libraries when they leave us.

So not only are they prepared to be able to select books, but they have a good start in actually seeding their classroom libraries.

We also talk a lot about how do you collaborate with librarians, how do you utilize the school library that may be, or may not be right?

Some schools don't have them.

- Sure.

- And how do you work with public library colleagues, right?

So far we're in our first year and we're excited and such having such a blast.

- [Steve] Yeah.

- So seminar one is how do I ignite excitement about reading in my classroom?

- Yeah.

- And really, that's just asking our students, our participants to really reflect on their reading identities and think about their experience with reading growing up as a child and then seminar two.

- Yes Joe.

- So in our second seminar we talk about how do you create a meaningful classroom library, one that reflects diversity and inclusion.

And then we talk about in the third seminar, how we use diverse books to dark conversations in the classroom, and really have inspiring conversations about literature and invite those conversations to happen between and among children and where the teacher just acts as a facilitator.

- [Steve] Yeah.

- Those conversations.

- Yeah, sure.

- And then the last seminar is really the centered on this notion of reflecting about what's on your shelves to do that final check of, have I really captured the human experience with all of these books?

And then of course, the culminating experience is the author visit and Joe, he's like this human walking Rolodex of everything that's ever been written-- - Okay.

- By any kind of children's or young adult author.

And so you're the one who came up with Elana.

- Okay, yeah 'cause this, as you said, this is your first year.

And so when you looked at finding an author and Amanda, we're gonna it to you.

'Cause I wanna find out what your involvement in terms of why you got into this program.

But when you went to look for an author, what were some of the things you looked for?

What were you saying?

Okay, I'm gonna do this for the first time.

Who do we wanna find to do this?

What was the criteria?

- So we were really interested in finding an author who writes for all different grade levels and age groups.

So someone who's done picture books, early chapter books, middle grade, young adult.

And we also wanted the author to have a diverse component to their literature as well.

And we generated a list, but the one that I just kept on thinking about, because I had read several of her books and loved them all was I really wanted Elana K Arnold.

And that she writes even early readers was a huge plus for us.

- Yeah, now Amanda you're a student.

So talk about why you got involved in this program in Lit & Learn.

- I think for me at first I'm graduating in April.

So the incentive of getting that donation to start my own classroom library, that was definitely a huge plus.

But after I attended the first seminar, I was very intrigued on how to build my own classroom library and where to find books for my classroom library and all the resources that just came from the Lit & Learn program.

- Yeah and well, and you raised an interesting point because, and you've all talked about this assembling that array of books and as we know, media is a challenge right now because things are pretty touchy at times.

So when you go to look at balancing that, how do you, all the three of you as you look at this, what do you do when you look for that?

You assemble that group of books.

What are the... What's the first thing you look for is age, obviously, depending on what grade you're teaching, but so how do you go about making sure you have that balanced or the appropriate array of books?

I guess I wanna say balance, but the appropriate array of books, how do you guys go about doing that?

- Joe is really responsible-- - Yeah.

- For building our fiction collection, but I would say generally our philosophy is the human experience every possible experience a human could have-- - Okay.

- Is it reflected in our collection?

- Yeah, okay.

- It's a pretty simple principle.

And you know, the more we can learn about other people, other cultures, other ways of thinking, other ways of doing things the better.

And I think Joe does a fabulous job of doing that.

- Amanda, as you're obviously you said you're gonna graduate very soon.

How do you feel this has prepared you in a way that maybe you didn't expect or there's some things that surprised you about the program that, oh, I didn't know, I would be learning about that or-- - Yeah-- - This gave me a whole different perspective on books and building my own, the library for your classroom and bringing reading into your classroom.

- I think one big thing was like diversity and just like how to build a diverse library in my classroom that supports all children.

So that's really important and I think it's really important from this Lit & Learn of where I can find those books.

We can find them at different places, you don't have to buy books brand new.

You can find them at grad sales or so I think that was just really helpful knowing I can use this donation to find books wherever, and they don't need to be brand new, but they can still support all children.

- Yeah and I think it was interesting too, you talked about the interaction with a librarian, if you have one in your building and if not, and with other teachers and then the public libraries or the libraries in your community.

So that's an important too, because as we talk about 1BookBG shortly, that's a community book effort.

So this is a piece of that, but it brings all of those people that deal with reading and books together in one group, so that's really good.

Yeah, I'm sorry, go ahead.

- I would say librarians are by nature collaborative, right?

And so our teachers, as you well know, by the end of this episode, if you didn't know, you'll come to appreciate that, but you know, Maria Simone, you've heard her name come up over and over again.

She's our Wood County District public librarian that serves our children and young adults in the area.

And she's fabulous and she's connected all of us, single handedly really.

- Well, yeah, well thank you for coming on and talk about Lit & Learn and again, come back next year and we'll talk about what you're doing for year number two and Amanda, good luck with your career-- - Thank you.

- As you step out of the university and into a classroom.

Thank you.

- Thank you so much.

Thank you guys, we'll be back in just a moment.

We're gonna meet the author that we talked about in this segment, when we come back on Journal.

So thanks for staying with us.

Thank you for staying with us here on The Journal.

We're talking about reading and obviously Lit & Learn, and 1BookBG, and this segment we're joined by two of the folks who are gonna bring us up to speed on what 1BookBG is.

I'm joined by Michelle Rogers from St Aloysius Schools here in Bowling Green, and also Stacy Higgins from BG City Schools.

So thank you both for being here.

Talk a little about what 1BookBG is, because for those of us who don't have a lot of background and talk about the history a little bit and what it is so people are aware of what its purpose is.

- Sure, so 1BookBG started by a committee of teachers back in 2015/16 school year.

And we used our first book as an idea or an opportunity to bring the community together.

Bowling Green Schools in particular had been going through some transition with closing of building and changes.

And this was a chance bring all of our city buildings as well as our private schools and parochial schools together into one activity that united families and our communities in supporting reading and celebrating literacy.

- Yeah and 1BookBG, so that's exactly what it is.

One book for the entire community and Michelle you're at St. Aloysius, so talk about your aspect, how your involvement in this.

- Well, so the first year the BG City Schools started this, and then they invited all of the schools in the Bowling Green area to participate.

So it's really great because the kids can relate to the book with their friends from other schools.

And we have a whole process of how we choose the book.

So like last year we read the book, "A Boy Called Bat," which was Elana K Arnold's book and we liked it.

So this year we decided to kind of look what kind of book we wanted.

We wanted to gear more towards our fifth graders, the older students.

And at that point, Maria, from the Wood County Library told us about the program that BGSU was doing with bringing Elana K Arnold to campus.

So we looked at her books and she had a new one called "The House That Wasn't There."

And some of us on our committee read the book and we loved it.

It's very descriptive, I mean, she really paints a picture in your mind through her words, which is great examples for our students.

And then she makes you feel like you're there.

It also deals with relationships, with friends, with family, little bit of fantasy.

So that can kind of grab those older kids in.

So when we were looking at all these things, it checked off a lot of the boxes of what we were looking for.

And then also knowing that BGSU was inviting us to come and hear the author, families can come.

That was yet another box we weren't expecting.

And so that was a perk.

And then also BGSU generously donated the books for all of our families, so we appreciate that.

And it was just a wonderful thing.

And you may have noticed we were wearing orange because all of the kids in our schools, this is our spirit day for 1BookBG.

And the cats in the story are orange cats and BGSU has done this partnership with us, so you'll see a lot of little kids with orange on.

- Yeah, now, when you do this every year, how many students are we talking across all of the schools roughly?

- Oh my gosh, well that includes usually K through five.

- Okay.

- At all of our three Bowling Green City elementaries plus St. Aloysius, BG Christian, and our Montessori School.

So you are looking at 100s of students, this year we have tailored it a little more towards grades one through five, particularly trying to address those intermediate grades that aren't always hit by the book choices.

It's difficult to find a book that appeals to everyone and that the families can enjoy, but we really feel like the past two choices, both Elana K Arnold's books have been perfect for that.

- And, oh, go ahead, I'm sorry, go ahead.

- No, I was just gonna say commenting on the books.

You know, even though we picked one for more of the fifth graders, the content of it is still appropriate for the littler ones.

And that's what's hard when you're looking for a book with fifth graders, sometimes the content isn't quite what you want a first grader are listening to, but this one really was so.

- Well and I was gonna say it has to be a little difficult to find the right book because we live in kind of volatile times when it comes to media content.

And as you said, finding a book that is appropriate for a fifth grader, and yet still will be manageable or acceptable to parents of younger students, it's gotta be really difficult.

When you go through that process, how does that... Give us a little more of the details, like the background, how do you... Do you have a whole list of books you start with, and then you check things off as you go along as to what works and what are some of the criteria?

- Right well, as teachers, we're always looking for books that our students respond to and our committee is made up of representatives from every building that is involved in the program at a variety of grade levels.

Plus we really rely a lot on our Wood County public librarian, Maria Simone.

- Who has been - Sure.

a great asset to us in helping us find books that not only we can get paper copies of, but also over the past two years, we've found we need to have that digital-- - [Steve] Digital copies-- - Digital aspect too.

And that that's another way we can tie into readers and families that may not take the time to sit and enjoy the book together.

- Sure.

- We really are trying to emphasize this as a family activity, not just necessarily school based.

We have wonderful support from some local businesses that are serving as mission stops for us, where they come out and the students can talk to a coffee shop or the ice cream stop or different places where they can then go and talk about the book and feel whole community is celebrating reading with them.

- Yeah and it is a good idea because it brings the community to one aspect-- - Yeah.

- One point and well, it's interesting and Michelle, when you talk about the fact that it isn't just in the classroom, there's these multiple settings, which makes it then available to everybody, all the families that wanna participate.

- Yes, we really promote it as a family event.

And this year we revised it a little bit where the families, you know, they read the book together, but then the students are doing more thought provoking, open-ended questions and they can earn a ticket for prizes.

They have a little passport that when they go to these mission steps in our community, they get a little stamp and then they turn show the teacher their passport to show that they've read the book and that they've stopped.

And then they get a ticket and more chances for prices.

- Yeah, so, yeah and as you guys know as teachers, and you mentioned this, both of you that being able to engage students to get them to engage in this is always a challenge.

And it's what you're both good at obviously.

Do you find there are challenge sometimes where some students don't necessarily gravitate to the book the way you'd like them to, I mean, one book can't fit all-- - Sure - But you have to find one like that.

So how do you deal with occasionally where students, I'm just not really interested in this at all?

- Well, we know that sometimes that's going to happen.

And so over the years we have definitely tried to address having different kinds of characters, having some fantasy, having some realistic fiction and really making sure that perhaps this year the book isn't the best fit for you, but I bet next year we can.

- Yeah, so yeah, just stick with us, yeah.

- Exactly.

- Good, good.

Is there anything else we should know about 1BookBG, are you working on next year, already?

- Conversations are... We are always on the lookout for a book that's going to help us hit all of those boxes and be something that both students and families and our businesses can get behind.

- Yeah, great and it's perfect for the community, brings everybody together, which is what you wanna do.

Well, Michelle Rogers, thank you so much, Stacey Higgins and yeah, come back and see us again next year.

When you know what you're gonna do for 1BookBG again next year, we'll glad to have you back on.

- Thank you for this time.

- We'll be happy to, thank you.

- We'll be back in just a moment here on The Journal with Lit & Learn and 1BookBG, back in a moment.

Thanks for staying with us here on The Journal.

Our guest is the author, the first author for the first annual Lit & Learn program here at Bowling Green State University and Alana K Arnold, thank you so much for being here and joining us.

Talk a little about becoming involved in Lit and Learn.

So you're the first author for the first ever program this year at the university.

So talk a little bit about what that's been like.

- Well, I feel really special to have had my works selected for this program.

Really, anytime anyone reads one of my books, I consider it to be a great gift.

We all get only so many hours alive on this planet.

And so if someone reads my book, they've given me like eight to 10 years, or excuse me, hope not that long, eight to 10 hours, at least of their life with my work.

So it's a great gift when someone chooses to spend time with my book.

So for an entire city to have done it, it feels almost, I don't know, it's a great joy to have been selected.

And then I learned that Bowling Green read my book, "A Boy Called Bat" last year-- - Sure.

- As a one city read and then this year they read "The House That Wasn't There" and it became the Lit & Learn choice as well.

So it feels like maybe I finally made it Steve.

- Yeah, hey, no, it's... And I'm always impressed by the creativity that's involved because not everybody can do this and talk just a little bit about I mean, how did you gravitate to becoming an author like this?

Because it's not something that he say very few people can do it and do it well and you've accomplished that.

- Thank you, I think I would push back on that though, because I think human beings are natural storytellers.

I think every kid is excited to share if something interesting happened to them when they go home after the end of the day, or if something interesting happens at home, they can't wait to go to school.

And I think one of the things we do naturally as humans is share our stories.

And sometimes I think that gets lost for a lot of people and we lose our faith and our voice as being worth being heard.

So I think that if anything, one thing I'd like the students who get to interact with me while I'm here to take from this is that each person has a voice and each person has stories worth telling.

But I started writing for children about...

I think actually way back in grad school, I was writing a book that I realized now was a young adult novel.

So I think I've always been interested in the human experience and the transitions between childhood and adulthood.

I started writing with young a adult novels and then started worked my way younger and younger all the way through picture books.

So I think I've been a writer my whole life and a reader even before I was a writer.

- Yeah and we talked about, the fact that reading is the foundation of all learning.

And I was gonna ask you, when you talk about, yeah, what got you into this?

'Cause you said you've been doing this from basically before you really thought of yourself as an author, you've been telling stories.

- Yeah.

- And it's interesting that you bring that up because we had a person on several shows ago who was dealing with stress for children during COVID.

They said, one of the best things you can do is have your child come home and tell them about their day.

In other words-- - Yeah.

- As you just said, tell your story, tell me what your story was today.

- Absolutely.

- It's interesting that you zeroed in on that in the way you write your books and the way you look at people, where do you get your ideas?

- Oh, that's yeah.

- How does that-- - That's a great question.

- And maybe that's the piece of the creativity that I don't.

- Yeah.

- Because that's an important thing.

Not everybody can say, oh, this was a good idea.

- Yeah.

And then, and as you said-- - Right.

- You can tell a story, but make it compelling is.

- I wish we had like three hours.

'Cause I could talk for days about this.

- Well, we can, let's go right ahead, go ahead.

- Well, the first thing I say, I don't know if I agree that the foundation of learning is reading.

I would say that the foundation of learning is paying attention and being curious and asking questions.

Reading is one way that you can learn about the world and be curious and ask questions and I'm a writer.

And so of course I want people to read books.

- [Steve] Sure.

- But I don't think that it is necessarily the best or the highest or the only the way to have access of the wonderful, big worlds that surrounds us.

So, I mean, I've met lots of kids who tell me they hate reading.

And that makes me sad because I love reading, but-- - Sure.

- I like to encourage them to notice all the different ways that they like to be connected to the world and all the stories that they do find to be interesting as far as where do I get like my ideas, it goes back to that idea of being curious and asking questions.

So basically I think everything is interesting.

I got the opportunity yesterday to visit one of the library rooms that involves the sound equipment.

And I know nothing about sound equipment or records, but I learned so much.

So I think the most important thing to do if you want to be a storyteller, is to remember to notice how interesting the world is.

The ideas are everywhere, if you start looking for them.

- [Steve] Yeah.

- Not only outside of us, but inside of us too.

- Yeah and again, that's a good point.

I guess, everything you see, everything you encounter could be that kernel of an idea or is a story in and of itself.

- Yes.

- So that's yeah, you've yeah.

You've really a nice job to explaining it.

'Cause I think a lot of people we go through our day and don't notice things and you're saying notice everything.

- Everybody can do it, like right now, like even just like looking at the table and looking at the colors and the table and the fact that over here we have lines, but over there we have dots.

It's like, that's super cool to me.

Why are there dots over here and lines over here and who made that decision?

'Cause I can tell this isn't real marble.

So like who decided that that's what the pattern should be and I'm interested now and like, well, who makes these tables and where did this come from?

I don't know.

- Well, expect that curiosity thing and what you're mentioning.

- Yes.

- And that is a good point because we go through our daily lives and we just go through them.

- Yes.

- And don't as I said, don't notice.

- Yes.

- All of those things - Yes.

- Around us that it could be a great stimulus for an idea.

- But children do, kids notice everything, they're fascinated with their own toes.

And so, you know, I mean, I think it's a process of forgetting to be interested.

And so one thing I think books can do or stories of any kind can do is help us remember just how incredibly gorgeous and interesting the world is.

And us too is part of it.

- Yeah, now are you working on another book as we speak?

- Always, yes.

- Always, okay, all right.

- So, well I have a book out, I just had a book come out called "Just Harriet."

- Okay.

- Which is a book about a girl who has to go spend the summer with her grandmother because her mother is having some difficulties with her pregnancy, everything turns not fine.

- Okay.

- And becomes involved in a mystery.

I think for readers of "A Boy Called Bat" and "The House That Wasn't There," it's another sort of gentle, loving book, full of family and big questions about who we are as humans.

And I just had a new book come out yesterday called "Starla Jean Takes The Cake."

It's the second in a series of books for younger readers.

They're early readers about a girl named Starla Jean who finds a chicken at a park.

And her father tells her if you can catch it, if you can keep it, never thinking she could catch that chicken.

- [Steve] And then of course she does.. - Which of course she does based on a real interaction I had with my son when he was five and I never thought he could catch that chicken, but he did.

And it began the chicken years of our lives.

So ideas are everywhere.

- Yeah.

- And I think letting go of this, the idea of is this good on a grand scale, if you're a creative person and instead asking, am I interested in this?

And bringing it back to one's self and thinking, what interests me as opposed to is this good?

Is this good as such heavy, enormous implications?

It's almost too big of the question.

- Yeah because I guess, you know, you've...

I'm sure you have written a lot of other things, you've done other things and maybe thought, well, maybe that isn't exactly where it should be.

But as you said, there probably is anything that says a bad idea.

There is-- - Yeah.

- You can turn... You can find something creative and engaging in anything you do, so that's really good.

- Yeah.

- Really good.

Well, thank you so much and thank you for being here for Lit & Learn at the university, best wishes on your future books.

'Cause obviously you're writing fairly prolifically is good.

So great.

- Thank you.

- And the books are entertaining and obviously it's a book that's brought the BG community together for 1BookBG.

So it's good to have you here.

- Thank you, it's so nice to be here, Steve.

I appreciate the invitation.

- And thank you again for taking the time.

You can check us out at wbgu.org and you watch us of course, every Thursday night at 8:00 PM on WBGU-PBS, we will see you again next time on The Journal.

Goodnight and good luck.

(upbeat music)