{"id":12023,"date":"2017-02-21T13:53:10","date_gmt":"2017-02-21T21:53:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/educatorinnovator.org\/?p=12023"},"modified":"2017-02-21T13:53:10","modified_gmt":"2017-02-21T21:53:10","slug":"read-brave-fosters-passionate-reading-and-intergenerational-dialogue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/educatorinnovator.org\/read-brave-fosters-passionate-reading-and-intergenerational-dialogue\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Read Brave’ Fosters Passionate Reading and Intergenerational Dialogue"},"content":{"rendered":"

Read Brave<\/a> is a city-wide one book project<\/a> in Saint Paul, Minnesota, facilitated by a small but passionate group from the Saint Paul Public Library\u2019s Createch program<\/a>, part of the YOUmedia Learning Labs Network. Marika Staloch, one of the facilitators, recently spoke with K-Fai Steele, of the YOUmedia Network and the National Writing Project. You can listen to the full interview below.<\/em><\/p>\n

Youth Services Coordinator Marika Staloch came upon the idea for Read Brave a few years ago, during a conversation with young adult author A.S. King. Staloch had been considering ways to improve attendance and engagement at the library\u2019s author events, and King shared the success of a one book project she\u2019d been a part of in a smaller town. Staloch loved the idea and soon the project was born, with King signed up to be its first author.<\/p>\n

Today, the project reaches teens and adults all over the city. Each year the library chooses a young adult novel, and works with partners to get the book in as many hands as possible. School and community groups meet to discuss the book, culminating in two days of talks and workshops put on by the author themselves.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey come in for two days and they come into our schools, into our rec centers, into our libraries, and are spending two full days straight, we really exhaust these authors. And they get grilled from some of these teens,\u201d Staloch says.<\/p>\n

At the core of the program is a desire to use young adult literature to create intergenerational dialogue about what it\u2019s like to be a teen. \u201cWe want to make sure that teens have a chance to talk about issues that happen in their lives based on what\u2019s in the books, and that adults would have a chance to have these conversations with teens in a way that wasn\u2019t asking the the teen about themselves, it\u2019s asking the teen about characters in the books. It opened up some really great conversations.\u201d<\/p>\n

Part of encouraging these conversations is picking books that will engage teen and adult readers from the first page, as well as titles that push boundaries in some way, bringing up real issues in teens lives that parents and kids might otherwise find too uncomfortable to discuss.<\/p>\n

In its early days, the project was picked up by a few charter schools in town, but before long it had spread to the local district schools as well. \u201cWe went through their media specialists, and they would offer the book to the teens, and start getting mass groups of kids who were really excited and involved, and then we\u2019d bring the author to them,\u201d says Staloch. \u201cAnd then English teachers started picking up on this and hearing about it, so they wanted to grow into this as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Throughout this expansion the library has taken on the role of open-ended facilitator, rather than trying to control the entire program. \u201cWe\u2019ve learned that the best thing we can do is just build the structure for it, and then let everyone else pick up the structure and do what they need to. So we set it up so that our Read Brave partners decide how they\u2019re going to bring it to their kids.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the years since the project began it has expanded not only into the schools, but also into the city\u2019s community centers, a local bookstore, and even a mother-child book club at a nearby women\u2019s prison.<\/p>\n

Staloch\u2019s advice for those wanting to start a Read Brave-style project of their own? Just start! \u201cStart small, but start, just do something\u2026.It will grow on its own because people get excited about it\u2026.Start with a small group of people who are passionate about it and you can do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

For more about the Read Brave project, including its history, its logistics, and advice for starting a one book project of your own, check out the full interview:<\/em><\/p>\n

Read Brave is a city-wide one book project in Saint Paul, Minnesota, facilitated by a small but passionate group from the Saint Paul Public Library\u2019s Createch program, part of the YOUmedia Learning Labs Network. Marika Staloch, one of the facilitators, recently spoke with K-Fai Steele, of the YOUmedia Network and the National Writing Project. You can listen to the full interview below.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":12037,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[397],"tags":[902,900,901,175],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/educatorinnovator.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12023"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/educatorinnovator.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/educatorinnovator.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/educatorinnovator.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/educatorinnovator.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12023"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/educatorinnovator.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12023\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12025,"href":"https:\/\/educatorinnovator.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12023\/revisions\/12025"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/educatorinnovator.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12037"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/educatorinnovator.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/educatorinnovator.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/educatorinnovator.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}