My students need books that represent their many diversities, including nonfiction titles like Primates, graphic novels like Lowriders in Space, and fiction books like My Basmati Bat Mitzvah.
Our school is an academic, economic, and socially diverse school in the heart of Henrico County. Three-fourths of our students have applied for, and been accepted to, the international baccalaureate program. The other portion of the student community filters in from nearby neighborhoods. Our library is working towards creating a flexible learning commons to support the needs of all of our students.
A large focus of the library program is to build lifelong learners and promote the love of reading.
There is research aplenty proving the importance of reading, and in our library, we are striving to create a collection of books that students will want to read. Our library collection is lacking the cultural representation that our population needs. Students want to read books that they can find themselves in - books that they can relate to - and we want to be able to provide that for them.
My Project
Every day, students come into our library and check out books. The majority of our students love to read and get truly excited when we have new books, however, they've been asking for books that include, "A character like me." Throughout this year, we, the librarians, have been working to develop a collection that all students will love and appreciate.
Our books need to support the population of our school.
The book list for this project has been carefully selected to include titles and genres that represent the cultures and diversity found within our building. Many have main characters of different ethnic backgrounds (It Ain't So Awful, Falafel; The Cruisers), but all feature stories that a middle school student can relate to (Save Me a Seat). Our requested list includes both high and low level books so that all of our readers will benefit from this project. We want these kids to get excited about reading!
DonorsChoose is the most trusted classroom funding site for teachers.
As a teacher-founded nonprofit, we're trusted by thousands of teachers and supporters across the country. This classroom request for funding was created by Ms. Dunaway and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
