- The used book and media sale known as Bookstock, is celebrating 20 years of supporting need to read.

The massive event takes place April 7th through the 14th at Laurel Park Place in Livonia.

Nearly 400,000 gently used books, DVDs, CDs, books on tape and vinyl records are gonna be on sale at deep bargain prices.

Proceeds benefit literacy and education projects in Detroit and the Tri-County area.

And there is an essay contest called the Bookstock Best Awards for Fourth Graders in the Detroit Public Schools Community District.

I had a chance to speak with the district's deputy superintendent and Bookstock's honorary chancellor, Alycia Meriweather, and one of last year's contest finalist, Dak'harion Dikemerekwe and his teacher at Davison Elementary School, Kenya Austin-Posey.

So Alycia, I'm gonna start with you.

This is a really great event every year.

It's a wonderful way for people to enjoy literature and media and all those kind of things, but as important, it's a great way to support the idea of literacy and the celebration of words and ideas in our public schools.

Talk to us about it.

- I think it's incredibly important to celebrate reading and writing.

Bookstock allows our students to participate in a contest.

So they talk about their favorite book character, which means they had to read a book and select a character.

And then they need to write about it in a convincing way because their work is judged and then a winner is selected.

So I think the piece around students reading and writing and about us celebrating students reading and writing is really important.

And Bookstock has been a great partner in this for several years now.

- Yeah, Kenya, we've talked before about how this plays out in the school and in the classroom.

This idea of lighting kids' imagination, right, with books and stories.

This is a great opportunity to do it.

- Yes, it is.

The students, like I said, every year they're excited to come to my class.

So they know they're gonna compete in this competition and it's pretty fun.

The kids get to enjoy reading the books, writing their essays.

That's a total whole process 'cause a lot of reading on my part.

But they do open peer editing well, so they can help each other out.

But the reward is when they get to see their classmates, whoever wins that's like highlighted and we have it on our Davidson 4.0.

We use Teams to display our announcements in the morning.

or whoever gets notified that they've received award that he will be highlighted on your broadcast today.

So yeah that's funny.

- That's funny.

Dak'harion, I wanna hear from you especially tell me about the book that you read and the character that you wrote about.

- Well- - Speak up.

- It was really interesting to read the book because I'm really fascinated in the military and how the military and how history worked back then.

So when I wrote my essay or read the book, it was really fun to make the essay- - Take a deep breath.

Yeah, take your time.

- It was really fun.

It was really fun to learn about how a dog saved people back in World War I.

- So what was the name of the book that you read?

- The name of the book was "Sergeant Stubby the Dog Hero," a hero in World War I.

- And how did you pick that book?

- I read it off of Mayan.

- Yeah?

- That was a digitalized reading source we use in the district.

So that was last year when he read that book.

- Yeah, so, you know, Kenya, hearing him talk about that reminds me of the times in school when the teacher would say something like, "Hey, go pick a book off the shelf or off this list and we're gonna do this thing with it."

And the way you would kind of just look at every title and sometimes at the picture on the cover of the book and try to find inspiration.

And it was that connection between the reading and your imagination, the reading and your sense of adventure that made me into a reader.

I mean, it's the thing that made me keep coming back to that shelf.

- That's the goal to keep picking up a book and reading.

That's definitely the goal.

And just to have a love and passion for it.

We do weekly reading logs, so that's a requirement in our classroom.

- Yeah, Alycia Bookstock's been around a long time now.

It is a rather large event.

It does, of course this this piece with the public schools and with reading, but it does so much more.

- Bookstock in addition to the fact that you can have access to thousands, hundreds of thousands of books and vinyl.

They've added vinyl recently, so books, records.

So the sale itself, so you can get all of these materials at low cost.

So that's a benefit to the community in and of itself.

But beyond that and our contest that we do with Bookstock, Bookstock also supports within the district several literacy related projects.

So they have supported in the past year, I think beyond basic some other literacy interventions.

And that is also helpful.

So it's not just about the writing contest that we're referencing earlier, and that's coming up against soon.

We'll have new winners this year, but it's also about access to books at a reasonable cost.

and I think that is actually one of the greatest community benefits.

Books are expensive and especially for people that have limited resources, the idea of building a home library can be pretty daunting on a limited income.

And so, you know, when you go to Bookstock with $20, you literally could come home with 20 books.

And that does not happen at a regular store.

- Yeah.

- So I always encourage people to build their own library or build a library for a child they know, stock a little free library.

And for our teachers this year, we've received a grant that will be giving out to specific teachers in schools where they can take their class to Bookstock and they'll be getting Bookstock books.

So thanks to the generosity of a grant.

So that's coming soon.

You guys are first to hear that.

That is coming out shortly.

- You know, the other thing about Bookstock is I just kind of imagine that the books themselves are getting new lives, right?

Somebody buys a book, they read it, maybe they give it to their children and they enjoy it.

And then you can take it to Bookstock and it can do that all over again with another family.

It's a way to kind of keep that word and that idea alive.

It's not just the people, it's the books themselves that are being celebrated.

- Dak'harion wanted to show you guys a book he created with his (indistinct).

- Oh my goodness, yeah.

- Wanna show them?

- We wanna see that.

- So this is your book he created.

Tell them about it.

- This is my book.

The essay actually inspired me to make my own book.

- Wow.

- So here it is.

It's called "A Samurai from Detroit."

It's about a black samurai who becomes the most powerful samurai in the world.

- That is something.

My goodness, Kenya, that's like the best moment, right?

- You feel it, right?

- It inspires the student to go and make his own book.

You must see this over and over though all the time.

- I know.

I was so excited.

He's the first to bring me his own published book.

- Is that right?

- Yes, I was like, oh my goodness, so I'm wanting him to read it 'cause it's reading month, so they're gonna broadcast the different children that are reading books to the school and trying to convince them to read for us this month.

- Yeah.

That's very cool.

Maybe you'll grow up to be an author, Dak'harion.

That's a early start on a really good career.

Alycia, the other thing I always want to do with Bookstock is remind people get there early 'cause this stuff goes.

There's a lot of people who show up for this and the good stuff goes really quick.

- Yes, the grand opening, now I think there is a fee that you have to pay for the special early admission.

which is where there is a line out the door at least an hour before we open.

And that is people come with their wagons, with, you know, their carts to come through and get as many books as they can from the first selection.

After that crew comes through, there's still thousands of books that are available.

But yes, I think when you come earlier in the sale window, you're more likely to find some things that you were actually looking for.

And what I would say though is if you don't know what you're looking for, you will find something still or if what you were looking for is gone, there's something else there.

- Something else there.

- Last year I found a huge oversized corduroy book, which is one of my favorite books when I was a little girl and I had to buy it.

So that is at my house now and I read it with my nieces and nephews.

But those kinds of things are there and the records, the books come early, come often.

You can come back more than once.

And they also have an educator day where the books are half off, I think is the percentage discount.

So pay attention to those dates.

- Yeah, okay, well Alycia, Kenya and Dak'harion and it was really great to have all of you here on "American Black Journal" and we really look forward to this year's Bookstock.

Thanks for being with us.

- Right, thank you all for having us.

- Thank you for having us.

And I look forward to hearing about more books from you, young man.

- That's right.

That's right.