What’s Sally Reading?

International Literacy Day is September 8.  Visit this site  and scroll down a bit to click on “Idea Starters.”  This PDF has a page full of ideas you can borrow to celebrate the day in your community.  It also has some links that could get you going in another direction.  The main page also has a fact sheet you could print out for your patrons to read on the eighth.  Take some time to celebrate literacy in your town this year.  Blackout by John Rocco is beautifully illustrated and tells of a boy whose parents and older sister are too busy to play a board game with him.  Then the lights of the city go out and the family first climbs to the roof of their apartment house and wave their flashlights at others on roofs nearby.  Looking down they see many members of their neighborhood on the streets relaxing and talking and taking it easy.  When the lights come back on, the family turns theirs out and play the board game by candlelight.  Told in comic book format, mostly, the illustrations are still large enough to convey the dark atmosphere and feeling of camaraderie among the neighbors.  This picture book will go great with next summer’s reading program about nighttime: “Dream Big – Read.”  (The Nebraska Library Commission receives free copies of children’s and young adult books for review from a number of publishers.  After review, the books are distributed free to Nebraska school and public libraries.)