Hi, my name is Emily. I'm a teacher and a coach at Wy'east Middle School in Vancouver, Washington, and this year the 8th grade teachers want to give every 8th grader, all 263 of them, a book. Every spring, the 8th Grade English Language Arts teachers teach a unit on contemporary literature. This unit is about cultural relevance and getting teens to fall in love with books that are deeply meaningful to the lives they are living right now. The unit introduces young people to some of the great writers of their generation, including such talents as Jason Reynolds, Walter Dean Meyers, Angie Thomas, Erica Sanchez, David Levithan, and Alan Gratz, writers who are writing for them. It is a powerful unit that creates opportunities for teens to share their voices and find their places in school and in the world. Today, with book banning just as relevant as ever, this unit is so important. Students end the unit by defending WHY these incredible books should remain in schools, and why these voices are not only fascinating, but critical.

 

In past years, teachers have begged libraries, borrowed from other teachers, and dug into their own pockets to give kids the most cutting-edge books available. At the end of the unit, hundreds go missing and must be replaced, to which teachers simply smile, shrug and say, "oh darn," because secretly we know a book in the home of a student is never bad. Secretly, we may even hope they never come back. We want them to be loved and shared. That's what this unit is all about, after all.

 

So that got me thinking...Why not just put a book in the home of every student from the start? What would happen if instead of checking out a book to a student, a teacher could say, "Pick anything. It's yours"?

 

If you are like me, and only need ask for a book growing up, you might not realize how powerful it can be to be able to have a book that you can call yours. One whose binding you get to see gradually break as you dig into it. One where you can write in the margins and bunny-ear the pages. One where you can pass it on after you're done with it or keep it to read again later in life. I don't think I realized until I became a teacher what a luxury and a privilege that was, because buying books is an investment not everyone can afford. Many of my students don't have a book in their house, and if they do, they aren't the kind of books that are meaningful, the kind that will foster a love of reading for years and years. I need your help to change that.

 

In order to gift each of Wyeast's 263 8th graders a book, I need to raise 3,945 dollars. One 15$ donation will buy a paperback book for a student. That is less than the cost of a movie ticket, or a quarter tank of gas. One book may seem like a small thing, but it takes just one book to turn a plain old shelf into a book shelf. By supporting this cause, you're not just buying a book, but investing in a child's future shelf, and in turn their future self. It just takes one.