Maine Humanities Council

The MHC received this note from an adult education teacher who works with our New Books, New Readers program. She tells a story that affirms this work and shows some of the impact this program can have:

“My literacy student and his wife have been attending the New Books New Readers programs for two years. Rachel enjoys the outings and the discussions, but the programs mean the world to Roger. Roger grew up in a poverty-stricken family and was very badly injured as a small child—and in addition, he is the most severely dyslexic student of the several hundred I have worked with. Yet he is a very bright, intellectual man who devours the History channel and science documentaries; he can really make connections. The New Books New Readers programs have given him a chance to take in, think about, and discuss themes in literature–and with the help of another tutor, who diligently reads all of the books to him, he makes the most of this opportunity. Just recently, his other tutor and I have noticed a sudden improvement in his reading ability. Instead of toiling along struggling so hard to decode each word separately that he has no sense of the sentence as a whole, he is suddenly reading in phrases and whole sentences, with good comprehension! He and I both feel that the experience of listening to and discussing the New Books New Readers selections has allowed him to make that leap to comprehension. He is finally truly reading.”

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Each year, the adult education programs that partner with New Books, New Readers eagerly await a new series, and just about every year, the program provides one. In 2010, New Books, New Readers developed a series on the immigrant experience in the United States. “Caught Between Cultures” explores such questions as: What do immigrants find alien about America? How does America start feeling like home? How can you maintain the culture that you were born into and still become American? What do immigrants value most about America?

New Books, New Readers is a reading and discussion program for adults who struggle to read. It uses children’s books with simple language but enormous ideas. The texts for “Caught Between Cultures,” like all other series, are capable of prompting powerful conversations:

Home at Last, Susan Middleton Elya

Grandfather Counts, Andrea Cheng

In English, of Course, Josephine Nobisso

Angel Child, Dragon Child, Michele Maria Surat

Molly Bannaky, Alice McGill

When Jessie Came Across the Sea, Amy Hest

A Day’s Work, Eve Bunting

Hannah Is My Name: A Young Immigrant’s Story, Belle Yang

Coolies, Yin

Kate Kennedy speaks on writing in Biddeford

Writers of all stamps and kinds—young adult fiction, historical nonfiction, personal essay, fantasy, poetry, and more—are visiting New Books, New Readers groups this winter in a program partially funded by the National Endowment for the Arts. The Visiting Writer program is showing adults who struggle to read what it means to be a writer, and inspiring them in the process.

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A MHC scholar/facilitator recently shared this story of a New Books, New Readers group she works with in Biddeford:

I have observed over time that participants in the Parenting Program (age range potentially 16-60) become a support for each other.  They check on who is missing, who is in the hospital with diabetes, who needs a ride, etc. entirely separate from the two teachers. Participants report when they read a New Books, New Readers book to their kids and what the kids thought, when their kids use one for a report. New Books, New Readers can’t claim all the credit for this support, but the stories shared and issues discussed do bring them together as well as the classes they take in parenting.

These kinds of sharing would not occur without an ongoing relationship between “scholar” and participants.  One of the phrases the mother uses in the book Beatrice’s Goat is “First Things First;” many of these participants have learned how to decide and act on what is most important for them and for their children the hard way. But they share and joke with each other about their experiences through the medium of the books we discuss.