Reaching out through reading
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This article was published 09/02/2021 (841 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
February marks I Love to Read Month in Manitoba. Anyone who knows me knows that I love this opportunity to promote reading. This month is a great reminder of how valuable it can be to spend time reading with your kids or to encourage their independent reading. It is also a good excuse for adults to pick up a new book from the store or library.
I am excited to be reading to students once again to mark I Love to Read Month. This month I will be doing virtual and video readings to students that align with the Manitoba Reading Association’s theme for this year which is “Joyful Reading in a new world.”
The theme promotes the ideas of finding more ways to read using different types of technology.
With this past year being unlike any other for many students, I wanted to showcase books with messages of hope and help for youth.
Have You Filled a Bucket Today? is a book by Carol McCloud. With an audience of younger children in mind, it talks about how people carry around an invisible bucket which can be filled with good feelings that make people happy. Being loving and kind and doing nice things for others helps you fill other people’s buckets with good feelings. The book also points out that being mean to other people can take away from their buckets.
This is a great book to encourage positive behaviours in kids by showing them how they affect the world around them whether with their families, friends or even in their community. It also helps them understand how they can fill their own buckets with good feelings.
The second book I chose this year is The Day You Begin by Jacqueline Woodson. This book shows there are times when kids may feel like they don’t belong and how they can overcome those situations. The book acknowledges when kids feel alone or different — whether because of the way they look, their living situations or their abilities and how it sometimes takes time to find all the ways you can connect with the other kids around you.
The author encourages kids to be proud of their stories, to share about themselves and to open up, because that often helps other kids do the same and find they have things in common after all.
This is another great story to acknowledge children’s’ feelings, offering a way to help kids be seen and heard, and overcome uneasy feelings.
February also marks Black History Month and Jacqueline Woodson is an award-winning Black author with dozens of published books for various age ranges.
I hope I have inspired you to do a little reading to help mark I Love to Read Month.
Audrey Gordon
Southdale constituency report
Audrey Gordon is the PC MLA for Southdale.