News From the Maine Center for the Book

A Change of Focus for Born To Read

Launched in 1997, the Maine Humanities Council's Born To Read was the first statewide program in Maine to offer early literacy training to social service providers, coupled with free books for children through age 5. Since then, Born To Read has extended its programs to include health care providers, early childhood teachers and caregivers, volunteers, high school and college students, and parents.

This year marks a change of focus. Creation of "Raising Readers," a new statewide program designed to give books to families of newborns, allows the Council to move away from distributing books to babies and toward fuller engagement in educational outreach and curriculum development. Environmentalism and diversity education are two potential growth areas for the program.

"We, too, are doing humanities programming for teachers," explains Born To Read's Denise Pendleton, "In this case, the teachers are often preschool teachers or child care providers. They are all educators, as are our volunteers, who we also describe as mentors or teacher-mentors, because they are modeling reading aloud for providers. We are teaching all of these groups about content in children's books and teaching them how to talk about it."

A new literature-based environmental curriculum called "Mother Goose Meets Mother Nature," for example, uses ten high-quality children's books about the natural world. "Cultivating what Rachel Carson refers to as a 'sense of wonder' is the key objective in environmental education for children ages 3 to 7," says Born To Read's Myrna Koonce. In collaboration with the Vermont Center for the Book, the Council this year helped train 70 Head Start teachers in Portland, Bangor, Presque Isle, and Rockland in instilling this 'sense of wonder' in preschoolers through the "Mother Goose" curriculum.

Using the environmental program as a model, Born To Read is now developing its own "Diversity in Maine and the World" curriculum for early childhood teachers. Focussing on helping educators and children appreciate differences in race, language, culture, and abilities, the project will begin with a conference of teachers, librarians, and literacy specialists to choose books and outline a curriculum.

'Lit & Med' Goes National

A proven success in this state, the Maine Humanities Council's book discussion groups linking health care and literature will soon reach a national audience, thanks to a $284,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Humanities at the Heart of Health Care is a program of scholar-led seminars that uses compelling texts - both fiction and non-fiction - to help health care providers reflect on their work and on the quality of communication with colleagues and patients. The grant enables the Council to apply the Maine model in five other New England states. The Council will also train program scholars and liaison personnel in Illinois, North Carolina, and Texas who will then implement the program in their own states.

The Council began these seminars in 1997 and by next year expects to have them running in 28 hospitals throughout Maine. Participants include nurses, doctors, therapists, hospice volunteers, hospital trustees and administrators, and other health care professionals.

As part of its national outreach, the Council will organize a week-long seminar in 2002 to train scholars from the eight participating states and a training conference to prepare hospital liaisons and humanities council staff members from those states to organize and implement the seminars back home. The grant also funds five seminars in each New England state and seminars for all hospitals in Maine. An anthology of readings which have proved effective in the program will be published and made available throughout the United States.

According to the Council's associate director, Victoria Bonebakker, "The opportunity to reflect on their profession through the lens of literature and share these reflections with colleagues has proved to have a significant effect on the way health care professionals understand their work and their relationships with patients and each other."

Funding Grows for Center's Programs

The Nellie Mae Education Foundation has awarded the Maine Humanities Council a $90,925 grant in support of New Books, New Readers, a series of scholar-led book discussions for adults who are improving their reading skills. The funds will also enable the Council to design and run book discussion series for at-risk teenagers in Maine.

New Books, New Readers uses literature as a means of drawing participants into discussions of themes that relate to their own lives. According to Bill Laney, director of Somerset County Adult Basic Skills, as their reading comprehension improves, so "does their ability to organize and communicate their thoughts. They also learn how to discuss important issues in a civil manner. "

Last year, more than 300 people took part in New Books, New Readers at 30 locations in Maine, including jails and prisons. Participants receive a copy of every book to keep so they can share them with family and friends.

The newest Center for the Book program is Stories for Life, a literature discussion series for probationers and probationer officers. The program's $43,200 contract with the Maine Department of Corrections will find year-round series at six sites in the state during 2001/2002.

Meanwhile, another of the Council's book discussion series, Lets Talk About It, has received a $4,000 grant from the Maine Community Foundation to develop two new series specifically to be offered at four sites in the Maine correctional system in 2002. A $3,600 grant from the Frances Hollis Brain Foundation will provide the books for these series, which will be designed around the theme of one's place in the community.