Mom’s Books, Now Available!!!

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I’ve been helping my mom with a huge task… her life’s work is to teach as many kids to read as possible. She wrote 4 books to help them break through.

Mom has taught “little guys” to read for a long time. (She taught early elementary grades in public school for about 25 years.) These books are the result of her work on the students’ behalf. She struggled to learn reading herself, and has been passionate about making it easier for others.

Mom wrote all the stories so that only one new word appears on any page. She found when working in the classroom, some new-reader books would introduce even four new words per page. Many kids can not handle that rate of introduction.

The books have color covers, but the insides are black and white line drawings. One benefit to this, is that the artwork does not distract from the subject matter.

Another benefit is that children can be encouraged to own their books by coloring in the characters. Each character is named by their color, so the child can own the word “Red” by coloring the little Red character throughout the books.

My little sweet friend Isabel received a set of the prototype books about a year ago. One night she sneaked into its storage place, took it in her room and colored in every instance of little Blue. Her favorite color is blue. I love that story!

If you live in Lansing, you can get the books at Everybody Reads bookstore. This is on Lansing’s fine and funky East Side, across from Emil’s Italian restaurant, the same block as Rae’s Yarn Boutique. (It’s about 4 blocks west of Frandor.)

Everybody Reads will be sponsoring a meet-the Author/Illustrator night, with a book signing and talk. The event will be Thursday, September 30, from 6pm-8pm.

I can not stress enough how important it is to communities, to buy from local shops when possible. I find it powerful and humbling to know who actually benefits from my small purchases when I buy from a local shop. Scott Harris runs Everybody Reads. He’s as passionate about reading as my mother. He is wonderfully supportive of local talent. I love to vote with my dollars by supporting him.

Everybody Reads will even ship books to you if you do not live in Lansing. Their phone number is 517/346-9900. They are open until 7 on weeknights without events, and 5pm on weekends.

You can read more about Mom’s story and each individual book, at the With Me Books page on lulu.com

Congratulations, Mom! Your work will benefit the world for generations to come. Nice job.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 16th, 2010 at 2:17 pmand is filed under Lansing, Miscellaneous Artforms, Relationships. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

momtroll

Thank you, Lynn, for all of your help in launching the books. Without your help, I would not have been able to do it. Yes, I taught in Okemos for 26 years and in Minnesota for three more years. I am happy the little ones will have a chance to have fun with reading.
http://thyme4dreams.blogspot.com Lindy

This is wonderful. As a recently retired elementary school teacher I heartily congratulate your Mom.

Following is a link you might like to read regarding “Indie” bookstores. I’m not sure if you can get to it from here – it was posted on FB. However, if you go to the NYTimes web site and search for the title you should be able to find it. It’s a short article giving much credit to the local independent bookstores.

U.S. Neighborhood Bookstores Thrive In Digital Age – NYTimes.com
http://www.nytimes.com

NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. independent bookstores are discovering how to flourish despite the growth of electronic books with some even looking to form an alliance with a formidable competitor — Google.
Irene

What fun, Lynn, that your mother was able to combine fun, colouring, and reading all at the same time, and with only one new word/page, the frustration level should be nil.

When I taught 5th and 6th grade (10 and 11 year olds), my favourite kids to teach were those who didn’t “get it” when they were “supposed to”. The teachers just threw up their hands – what could they do with 30 kids in a classroom with two who couldn’t read. Oh – what? They couldn’t do math problems because they couldn’t read? Oh, too bad. So further and further behind they fell.

My joy was to see those light bulbs go on when the fear was eased and the level that they worked at was where they had stopped learning. Once in their comfort zone (which was sometimes at the beginning of reading or math comprehension) they were able to figure out that tough stuff, and off they would run.

HOORAY for your mother’s work, and hooray for your working with her to make the published books a reality. I look forward to seeing them at Everybody Reads!

You do our community a favour with your human alerts!

X O Irene