Coretta Scott King Task Force announces first annual Review Books Donation winners

Contact: Larra Clark


312-280-5043

For Immediate Release


January 28, 2002

Coretta Scott King Task Force announces first annual Review Books Donation winners

The Coretta Scott King (CSK) Task Force is pleased to announce that Orchard Knob Elementary School in Chattanooga, Tenn., and the Children's Defense Fund are the first-ever recipients of the CSK Review Book Donation. The donation was established to find a home for the books that the American Library Association's (ALA) Social Responsibilities Round Table Coretta Scott King Task Force receives each year to be considered for the Coretta Scott King Award and for publicity and promotion of the winners.

Orchard Knob Elementary has 600 children and a book budget of only $3,500. The CSK Review Books Donation will help establish classroom book collections and be used in their "Read to Me" program. "Read to Me" provides each child with a book to take home each night "so that parents and other family members will be involved in the learning process."

The Children's Defense Fund will use the books to develop curriculum for summer Freedom Schools in 28 cities.

Zella Cunningham, media specialist of the Orchard Knob Elementary School, and Robin Sally, curriculum director of the Children's Defense Fund (CDF), submitted the winning applications.

"Cunningham and Sally share the Coretta Scott King Task Force goal of promoting literature written and illustrated by African Americans that '�give insight into the lives of people of color' and 'engender pride,'" said Patricia Carleton, committee chair and Associate Director of Youth Services and Family Literacy at the St Louis Public Library.

Applications for the 2003 CSK Review Book Donation will be accepted until December 1, 2002. For more information and the application, go to:
www.ala.org/srrt/csking/book_grant.html.