The Books And The Benjamins

Celebrating Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month

This project is a part of the Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month celebration because it supports a Latino teacher or a school where the majority of students are Latino.

Picture it: a school with over 500 students that did not have a library until this year.

Our new school library has many reference materials and encyclopedias, but is lacking in fiction and novels that appeal to our urban student population. Therefore, my freshmen students rely heavily on finding books to read for Independent Reading from our individual classroom library. Unfortunately, many of these books are well above their reading levels (e.g., "Pride and Prejudice", "Hamlet"). Also, most of these books do not appeal to the life experiences of a 14-year-old who prioritizes "street cred" over "book smarts." Many of my students have expressed an interest in reading books about well-known hip-hop artists such as Tupac Shakur, Rihanna, and Faith Evans. They have also wanted to read more books by Alice Walker (our classroom library only has "The Color Purple", which most of my more advanced students have already read). Every child deserves a library in which they can find books that appeal to both their interests and reading levels; however, this type of library remains only a distant, impossible dream for my students.

To promote interest in books and reading, I have started a classroom incentive contest called "The Books and the Benjamins". The terms of "The Books and the Benjamins" state that the student who reads the most books during a marking period will win a $100 gift card to a store of his/her choice. My students initially showed excitement about this incentive contest, only to feel discouraged and disheartened when they saw that most of the books in my dilapidated classroom library are British novels from the 1800s. In order to fully capture my students' interests in reading, I need books about Tupac Shakur, Faith Evans, Colin Powell, Michelle Obama, and Aaliyah. Also, I need books by authors from ethnically diverse backgrounds (e.g., Alice Walker, Julia Alvarez, Ernesto Quinonez, and James Baldwin). These books will help my more advanced students to see that authorship is not only the province of one or two privileged ethnic groups. Currently, many of my students see the books in our classroom to be far removed from their heritages, cultures, and communities. We need books in which they can see their own lives and cultures reflected and portrayed.

A new classroom library will empower my students to find enjoyment, knowledge, and liberation in the act of reading. Your help will make it possible for my students to see that books are treasured reservoirs of knowledge, not just cumbersome requisites of compulsory public education. Also, with your assistance, my students will have access to ethnically diverse novels that they will most likely encounter in college (e.g., James Baldwin's "If Beale Street Could Talk" and Julia Alvarez's "How the Garcia Girls Lost their Accents"). Most importantly, these books -- especially those by Alvarez and Baldwin -- will prepare my more advanced readers for college-level courses. Please help my students conceive and achieve their dreams of finding success in college by giving them access to books in which they can see a full reflection of their diverse identities, cultures, and communities.