Chicago Mayor Announces
Literacy Program for Young Readers
A Chicago Public Library program to expand the number of books and other materials available to readers younger than age 9 was announced February 7 by Mayor Richard Daley. “The object is to get children excited about reading before they are old enough to read,” Daley said at a news conference held at the library’s new Austin-Irving branch.
The “Get Wild About Reading” program, designed to get children “behind a book instead of in front of the television” as the mayor put it, arose from an April 2001 reading roundtable of university professors and school administrators Daley assembled to find ways to improve reading scores in Chicago public schools, according to the February 8 Chicago Tribune. “We heard loudly and clearly that starting at birth was the only way we were going to get children reading and excited about reading,” Library Commissioner Mary Dempsey said.
Library officials said the program will allow children to play with such materials as alphabet games and puzzles, while parents can check out guidebooks and a video series on phonics. More than half of the first-year cost of the $400,000 program will be covered by the Chicago Public Library Foundation, with the remainder funded by the city.
CPL also announced that the choice for the second year of its “One Book, One Chicago” program is Night, the 1958 autobiographical novel of Elie Wiesel’s experiences in the Nazi death camps. Last year, To Kill a Mockingbird was the selection for Chicago’s citywide reading initiative.
Posted February 11, 2002.
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