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.

I’m pleased to report that our Hurricane Katrina Book Drive keeps growing and is on track to ship over 250,000 children’s books and textbooks to hard hit schools. Our thanks go out to all of you who have contributed books and funds from across the country.

Last month we delivered 40,000 children’s books to Mississippi schools with the help of Bekins Van Lines. Our thanks to Bekins and McKee's Moving & Storage Company in Weymouth, MA for donating the shipping.

We are gearing up for our next shipment of 60,000 books which will ship in the next week with lots more to follow.

On another subject, ever heard of manga? It was new to me until about a year ago when several school librarians clued me in to how popular it is.

Manga, the Japanese version of a comic book, are a great literacy tool. The action-packed illustrations coupled with the cartoon-format dialog make great transitional reading material. Most importantly, the stories are engaging for teen readers. They gobble these books up.

Out in the south west we are getting lots of raves for the manga we have been shipping to Navajo Pine High School in Navajo, New Mexico.

Just this month VIZ Media, a leading publisher of manga, donated 500 hundred manga books which we are shipping to Navajo Pine. One interesting result is how much manga has sparked student interest in learning about Japanese culture.

Read on to see what I mean.

Hi David,

We have been getting lots of boxes of books from Reader To Reader--everything you sent has been great. How do you have the time to think of us at Navajo Pine? I'm so grateful. We are about ready to have another manga drawing contest. There has been a lot of interest in each box you have sent. All the staff and students are reading manga and can't wait for more. I am also reading all the manga and becoming quite a fan.

How did you make a deal with VIZ Media? They are like gods in the manga world. I know about their manga magazines. They are highly sought after by our students. Most of the kids can't afford these magazines--but they would all like to have them.

We are going to have our manga drawing contest in March. We will give prizes to everyone who enters, plus winning entries. This year I am adding a costume component to the contest--where students can dress up as their favorite manga characters. We will show anime movies and have students sample Japanese food.

Our Navajo students are practicing using chop sticks and getting samples of sushi. I have taken my rice steamer to school and can feed five hungry students with one cup of rice. We are using the Manga Club as our guinea pigs.

By the way, I am sending a poster that we made. It’s of Ashiih Ashkii Clauschee, my son. He is reading one of the books you sent to us by Sherman Alexie called Indian Killer.

This is a poster that I developed to advertise our campaign about reading Native American literature throughout the district and the state.

I will be giving a small workshop about Native lit to the district librarians too. We have been conducting a campaign to get more teachers and librarians to use Native authors in their classes. We have the best collection of Native authors at Navajo Pine thanks to you and Reader To Reader.

Thanks for everything you have done for our school.

Carla Clauschee, Librarian
Navajo Pine High School
Navajo, New Mexico

We will keep shipping lots of great books to Navajo Pine High, including poetry and Shakespeare, and in addition to manga, we are collecting books on Japan and Japanese culture to feed the student’s new found interest.

Books broaden horizons. The students at Navajo Pine learning to use chopsticks. Could there be a clearer example?

Oh, and please visit http://www.readertoreader.org/news/navajopine.htm to see their beautiful Native Authors poster.

New schools this month include Bowe Elementary in Chicopee, Massachusetts and Goddard Elementary School in Brockton, Massachusetts. Goddard Elementary only had 100 children’s books in their whole school. We’ll fix that!

That's all for now.

Until next month,

Sincerely,

David Mazor
Executive Director
Reader To Reader
http://www.readertoreader.org
email: dmazor@readertoreader.org

Please help us with a tax-deductible donation.

Here are some of our recent books shipments:

Pointe aux Chenes Elementary, Montegut, LA

• Horrible Harry Goes To Sea
• Horrible Harry and the Green Slime
• Dinosaurs
• Trumpet of the Swan
• The Borrowers
• Puss in Boots
• Forever Poems for Now & Then
• 70 more

West Tellahatchie High, Webb, MS

• Dicey’s Song
• Journal of Brian Doyle
• Children of the River
• Journey Through Space
• Words By Heart
• Daughters of Venice
• My Side of the Mountain
• 20 more

Holyoke High School, Holyoke, MA

• Tearless
• River Rats
• Lupita Manana
• The Blue Mirror
• Cubanita
• The Write Stuff
• Cortes: Conqueror of Mexico
• 20 more

Ray Brooks High School, Benoit, MS

• The Universe Explained
• Dust Tracks on a Road
• Song of the Buffalo Boy
• Ruby Bridges
• Game Face
• Olivia
• All God’s Children Need Traveling Shoes
• 30 more

R.D. Wilson Elementary, Waymart, PA

• Little Mouse’s Birthday Cake
• Bear Snores On
• Wolf at the Door
• Night Journey
• Across the Rolling River
• Enchanted Castle
• Some Things Are Scary
• 30 more

Navajo Pine High School, Navajo, NM

• Modern Poems
• Mau I & II
• Coyote Tales
• Brian’s Winter
• Bridge of Years
• Heron Cove
• 100 more

Berry Elementary, Detroit, MI

• A Family of Poems
• Everglades
• The Borrowers
• Going to School in India
• Arthur’s Honey Bees
• Wild Ponies
• The Stray Dog
• 50 more

James Otis Elementary, E. Boston, MA

• Extraordinary Girls
• Children of Native America
• Back to School
• To Be and Artist
• The Cookie Company
• Germs on Their Fingers
• 20 more