books

Teaming Up with a Detroit Little Free Library Steward!

/ Detroit Mercy English / Leave a comment

Guest Post by Lauren Church, Detroit Little Free Library Steward

Have you ever seen a small box, on a post, maybe shaped like a house, with a door? If you have, it may have been filled with books. This is a little free library, a place for books to be given and taken freely. These libraries are in front of school and in parks. Some of your neighbors probably have them in front of their home.

I’m Lauren, and I fill and repair little free libraries in Detroit. I have done this for about six years now. It started the winter of 2019, when I was trying to figure out what to do for Christmas presents for friends and family. No one really needed anything and the idea of giving stuff for the sake of giving stuff bothered me. I instead thought of buying books for the little house-shaped boxes I’d seen in my neighborhood. I wrote in my Christmas cards, “In lieu of gifts, this year we are making donations of books to our local little free libraries.” A love affair was born.

I was given an opportunity to expand my efforts not a few months later, when the world shut down due to Covid. As soon as I got word that the illness could not spread from physical objects, I knew books were safe and got to work. First, we put up our own little free library. Then I started making a list of all of the boxes I could find in and around Detroit, so I could start to fill them with books. That list has grown to over 100 libraries and I’ve been able to visit and fill all of them at least twice over the following years. We’ve also worked to repair the libraries. Some of them have needed new doors, fresh plexiglass, or an entire roof. These libraries needed a steward – a role I was happy to fill (and ask my handy husband to support on occasion.)

But my efforts could not happen alone. Fred Rogers famously said, “Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.” I’m fortunate to have found my helpers in the form of the team behind Rx For Reading, from the University of Detroit Mercy. Led by Mary-Catherine Harrison and a team of student coordinators, Rx For Reading has been a huge supporter of my efforts, giving me thousands of books over the years to place in libraries throughout the city. A majority of Detroit’s little free libraries are in front of Detroit Public Schools, so I supply a lot of children’s books – and I’m able to do that thanks to Rx For Reading.

A memory I reflect on a lot is from when I was filling up a library in front of an elementary school. A car pulled into the parking lot and a little boy burst out, running up to me. In my hands were several books, but most notably a very large hardcover Star Wars Lego book that talked about all the different characters in their toy brick forms. “Can I have that book?!” the little boy said, breathlessly. “Of course!” I said, handing him the book. “YES!” In his arms, the book was nearly a third of his size, but seemed not nearly as large as the grin on his face. He ran back to his mom’s car.

I hope that there have been thousands of those moments over the years. And I hope there are thousands more to come.

Thank you to Lauren for your time, energy, and enduring commitment to kids in our community!

Inspiring the Youngest Detroiters through Reading 

/ Detroit Mercy English / Leave a comment

By Melissa Converse 

Melissa Converse sits in a chair preparing to read to kids in one of the Harper/Gratiot classrooms
Melissa Converse gets ready to read to one of the classrooms at UCFHS Harper/Gratiot. The children are as attentive as the dinosaurs and animals!

As a student coordinator for Rx for Reading, I’ve had the immense privilege to read weekly to the preschoolers at United Children and Family Head Start Harper/Gratiot for the past 3 months. It took very little time for the children to come to expect “Ms. Converse” every Wednesday afternoon and to have a book put in their hands for them to keep. Seventy-two 4- and 5-year-old preschoolers are now growing their very own libraries at home, thanks to Rx for Reading. That equates to over 1000 new books in the hands of Detroit’s youngest future leaders since September of this year! By the end of the school year, these children will have 30 books to call their very own – something to treasure, grow with, share with, and fall in love with over and over again. (To be a part of this has changed my world, as well, in no small way.) 

“If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. 
If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.” – Albert Einstein 

An image from Jabari Tries by Gaia Cornwall, a favorite among the UCFHS preschoolers, each of whom got to take home a copy to read and keep!

This past Wednesday was “Pajama Day” for the students and teachers of UCFHS… and so, of course, I participated as well. The children were beyond excited to show off their “Paw Patrol”, “Frozen”, and unicorn themed ‘fits. (Personally, I think PJ Day should be every day, especially when there is story time involved.) The book I chose to read was one I loved reading with my own boys when they were young, Snowmen at Night by Caralyn Buehner. The book was a huge hit as they wanted to discuss nearly every page and the new adventures had by the snowmen. To see them interact with the stories and want to discuss them, turning on that critical thinking mind at this young age is inspirational!  

An image from Snowmen at Night, the “featured read” for Pajama Day.

Elizabeth Carpenter, a long-time teacher at UCFHS, spoke with me about the impact of Rx for Reading and the positive effect books and story time are having on her students. She lit up when describing how the children’s “love for books and all of the characters, animals, different cultures has exploded” and went on to say that regular feedback from guardians is that the children are now consistently asking to be read to at home. Carpenter agrees that this is about more than books when the entire family is bonding together. “I love their love for books!”, Carpenter emoted with a warm smile. She then shared about a non-verbal-autistic student at UCFHS. This student now understands what it means to have books of her own and since getting one to keep from Rx for Reading every Wednesday, has now started trying to take the classroom books home daily, to which Carpenter reminds her, “we have to wait for Ms. Converse on Wednesday – then you can take a book home.”

An image from The Shape of Home by Rashin Kheiriyeh, another fantastic Rx for Reading book the children received, inspiring a shapes lesson and activity from their teachers.

All of the students are interacting with books in ways that Carpenter has not seen before due to regular reading and being entrusted with their own library. And the teachers are using the books to inspire lessons from as well. Most recently, they used The Shape of Home by Rashin Kheiriyeh as the springboard for their shapes lesson and activity with construction paper and glue – staples of arts and crafts in preschool. Rx for Reading, through the generosity of donors valuing the education of our children, is making an impact that will be felt for generations to come in Detroit.  

Melissa Converse is finishing up her Bachelor of Arts in English while minoring in Literature and Museum Studies. She has writing and teaching aspirations, as well as the desire to continue her post-graduate education in Creative Writing.