Dear Friend of Reader To Reader,

I hope you enjoy this newsletter about the Reader To Reader Book Project. Our success is very much due to your donations of books, postage money, and most of all your generous spirit. Please forward this newsletter and help us spread the word.

This month I'd like to tell you about one of the poor rural schools we help in Alabama.

Last December I was reading The New York Times when I spotted an article called "Poor Rural Schools Try to Meet New Federal Rules." The article detailed the problems faced by John Essex High School in Demopolis, Alabama, as an example of the obstacles poor rural schools have in trying to educate their students. The Times article noted:

Its library is a trip back in time, with books that ponder how the Vietnam War will turn out, others that speak of landing on the moon as an ambitious dream, and another that explains disagreements among scientists over how long satellites can stay in orbit.

The article also spoke of the valiant effort that the school's principal, Loretta McCoy, was making to bring hope and opportunity to a school so under resourced that they had neither a library nor any foreign language teachers.

That day I contacted Loretta McCoy and we began working out the details for the type of library she would love to have. I explained that we couldn't bring it to her all at once, but I promised her a "mountain of books." After almost weekly book shipments over the past six months I am pleased to say we are well on our way to climbing that mountain.

I recently received a very nice letter from Loretta McCoy that I want to share with you.

Dear David Mazor (Reader To Reader):

On behalf of John Essex High School, I would like to express my appreciation for the many boxes of needful books that we have received from your company. We can now truly begin to build a "real" library for our many deserving students. Thank you.

Without a real librarian and not much print at home, our students have not known the sheer pleasure of enjoying different books. You and I know that books are full of knowledge and wonderful treasures! Now our students will discover this also. The books you send will be put to good use. The Teachers thank you. They are now able to have classroom libraries. That's great!

Our children do not have the pleasure of an Arts teacher, but the books you've sent will help every teacher to have more resources in the subject areas of the arts, and I expect this to show up in their lesson plans and expect to hear feedback from the students. I'll let you know.

There are so many special ways that you have helped us in so many areas, until I don't know which of them to write about. For example, our students need Spanish to graduate with an 'Advanced Academic Diploma'. We don't have a Spanish teacher, so the county allows our students to take the subject through The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa - independently. This is really hard for our students! They don't get the chance to hear the language and ask questions. You know what a difference it can make to be able to hear a word first, then echo it back to learn? When you think about that, you can understand what a difference a tape can be to a student. So thank you for the Spanish books and tapes.

Our need for books in the area of Music Appreciation is another way that you have helped us. Our students need Music Appreciation to graduate. We don't have a teacher, but with the help of the books you sent, our Aide has more resources to help our students and we need that. Thanks again.

Almost 100% of the students at John Essex are at an economical disadvantage. It is located in a rural area in Marengo County, about 6 to 8 miles out of the City of Demopolis, AL. Out in an area called Saltwell. It services the students who live in these rural areas. (Jefferson, Saltwell, Gallion, and some from Demopolis.) We have 264, African American students. Most of them are poor. They don't know it though. I guess that's OK, but I hate it. I love my job though, it keeps me humble, and I learn a lot. The children seem to be happy, most of the time. Still, I'd like to bus them all up and take them to a city school in Tuscaloosa, so they can see what a real library is really suppose to be.

So I guess you can understand why I'm so grateful for the books, all of them, in every subject area and those for just the enjoyment of reading. I know that they can visit the world through some of these books, and understand that things are not always what they appear to be at home.

Our little ones (K-2), and really all of our students have to be taught how to love and appreciate books and enjoy reading. I believe your help will help the teachers and me to model that love and behavior.

I don't know how you have the time to ship all these books, and I don't know how you can fund what you do, but I am ever grateful and the whole John Essex Family thanks you.

Thank you for your continuing contribution of books to John Essex School.

Loretta F. McCoy, Principal

I want to add one more thing to the story of John Essex School.

The other day I was discussing with Loretta areas of particular need for her school and she mentioned music appreciation. It's an area that I sometimes have books, but my supply was recently depleted. As I went to our storage space at the Cadigan Center at Amherst College I planned to hunt through the boxes for any music related books I could find, hoping that there still might be one or two. As I walked through the door I noticed two new boxes at the entrance. I opened the first one and it contained over 20 books on music appreciation. The second one was loaded with even more. There were books on the history of classical music, jazz, blues, rock, and several books that had CDs with musical selections to accompany the texts. It was a treasure trove and there was not even a note as to where it was from! I packed up a great selection for the John Essex School and marveled at this wonderful bit of good fortune. Only later did I learn that Sydnie Kunin, one of our volunteers, had collected them from a professor at the University of Connecticut. Thanks Sydnie! Your timing as always was impeccable.

Here are highlights of just some of our recent book shipments:

John Essex School, Demopolis, AL

• Freedom Rising
• Milestones in African History
• Suffering Strong
• This New Strange Feeling
• Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul
• Alice in Wonderland
• 100 Years of National Geographic
• The Other America
• Man
• Over 65 other books

Dillard University, New Orleans, LA

• Evolution of the Nervous System
• Darwin Machines
• Portable Darwin
• Toward a New Philosophy of Biology
• Parties and Leaders
• Influence of Race & Racial Identity
• The Wise Men
• My Life in Science
• Medical Genetics
• Black Milwaukee
• Politics of Rich and Poor
• Fundamentals of Ethics
• Making Schools Better
• Tort Law in America
• Who Will Tell the People
• Over 40 other books

Springfield Academy, Springfield, MA

• Great Quotations
• The Bonapartes
• Rainforest Animals
• Earth & Sky
• Favorite Poems of Childhood
• Reading the Woods
• 30 assorted folklore books from around the world
• Over 50 other books

Davidson High School, St. Joseph, LA

• Huey Long
• The Minotaur
• Beloved
• Things Fall Apart
• The Color Purple
• History of Art
• The World of M.C. Escher
• An Unkindness of Ravens
• Lightning
• Nilda
• Over 60 other books

And that's just the tip of the iceberg. We've shipped much more.

Special thanks to Corinna "Corky" Lopez, Sydnie Kunin, and June Turcotte for volunteering their time to collect, organize and box up books.

Until next month,

Sincerely,

David Mazor

Reader To Reader

To be added to this newsletter please email dmazor@readertoreader.org