In February in celebration of Black History Month, the Daddy and Me Book Club had special guest readers Frank Farrow from the Mayor‘s Office of Black Male Advancement, Tony Richards Vice President of Equitable Business Development for Mass Housing, and children’s book author Veronica Chapman.
In honor of Women’s History Month, we joined the Boston Renaissance Charter School students for a virtual read-aloud session and shared the title “Playing to Win: The Story Althea Gibson” by Karen Deans, and illustrated by Elbrite Brown.
Our partnership with Amazon’s Black Employee Network (BEN Amazon) recently expanded to the P.A. Shaw School in Dorchester. In March we had our first session and Amazon volunteers read “Dream Builder: The Story of Architect Philip Freelon by Kelly Starling and Illustrated by Laura Freeman. Students were given the opportunity to ask volunteer readers about their roles at Amazon and the importance of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) in their personal and professional lives. We are looking forward to future monthly sessions with the students at the P.A. Shaw!
We partnered with Countdown to Kindergarten and the Suffolk County Sheriff’s Department to offer a Dads Reads Too program as part of Suffolk County Jail’s I-Can Academy. At each session, we met with a group of 12 fathers interested in connecting with their children virtually through literacy. During the workshops, fathers learned about dialogic reading with their children. The fathers and their children will receive books that they will read online together.
We also recently added a new “Loads of Books” location at Rinse Cycle Laundromat located at 493 Dudley Street in Roxbury.
The Blackstone Elementary School hosted Charlotte Dore and Ben Cunningham, two of our fantastic ReadBoston storytellers. Each student who attended the performances received a new ReadBoston book to take home!
Stay tuned for our summer Storymobile schedule. We hope to see you there!