Here is a nice local-news article about a high school sophomore who got a $500 grant from the NEA to promote literacy. I’m totally awed by this kid. She had book fairs at a local Waldenbooks and persuaded two authors to attend, which is cool enough, but she also used part of the grant to buy manga and kamishibai for a first-grade class.
Kamishibai books are large sheets of non-flimsy paper that have pictures on the front and words on the back so that, when someone reads the book to a classroom filled with kids, they can, Tucker explained, simply hold one of the pages up and comfortably read from the back of the picture.
I’ve heard about these before but didn’t know they were available in the U.S. Anyway, I like it that she is using manga to get younger kids reading. This girl sounds like she will go far.
