Young people deserve access to books

Posted on by Mark Isero

 Reading gurus Donalyn Miller and Colby Sharp have a new book out, Game Changer: Book Access for All Kids. In it, they emphasize the importance of classroom libraries and the importance of offering young people access to books.

If you’re on Twitter, they’re leading a weekly chat, #bookaccessforall. It’s an inspiring group of educators who care deeply about young people and their reading lives. They spend countless hours raising money to purchase new books for their students. It is heartwarming that so many teachers from across the country are working hard to get books into the hands of students.

The Kindle Classroom Project also believes in universal and unlimited book access for kids. Young people should be able to read what they care about, what interests them, what will spark their curiosity. They should be able to follow their passions.

This Winter Break, more than 1,000 middle and high school students in the Bay Area are enjoying the right to read without any impediments. As long as their Kindle is near them, they have access to whatever books they want to read.

Yes, it’s a cliché, but KCP students have a library in their hands.

One of my favorite things during Winter Break is seeing which students request new books to add to the KCP Library. The program’s all-volunteer book buying team never goes on vacation. We grant students’ book requests 365 days a year. When a young person wants a new book, we deliver it within 24 hours. The whole point is to keep the reading going.

The reading keeps going because of generous donors from across the country. Some give money for books; others donate their used Kindles. The holiday season is the time when some people upgrade — maybe to the Kindle Oasis, or the Paperwhite 4 — and want their older Kindle to find a new home. In this era of planned obsolescence, Kindles last a long time. Just ask KCP teacher Erin’s 150 10th graders, who are enjoying their Kindle Keyboards (circa 2010). Young people don’t always need the newest gizmos; sometimes, all they want to do is read.

This holiday season, the eighth in KCP history, it’s heartwarming to know that so many young people have so much access to the books they love. It’s also heartwarming to know that there is a community to supporters who are helping to build this healthy, robust reading community. 

Books at the Kindle Classroom Project never go missing, don’t need to be checked in and out

Posted on by Mark Isero
One of the biggest challenges that teachers face in promoting a community of readers is making sure that there are enough great books for young people to read. Teachers often spend the weekends driving to garage sales, rummaging through book collections, trying to find gems. Other teachers write grant proposals on DonorsChoose, hoping that their ask is funded. This madness has to stop! Young people should have access to books they want to read, and teachers should be able to teach. At the Kindle Classroom Project, books never go missing or get worn. When a student requests a new book to the library, he or she can share it with five friends. Also important, teachers don’t need to spend their time checking books in and out of their classroom library. Books are always safe. Let me know if you have questions!

At the Kindle Classroom Project, young people get to read what they want to read

Posted on by Mark Isero

 People ask me why I don’t let teachers add books to the Kindle Classroom Project’s Library (now at 1,600 titles and counting).

It’s not that I don’t like teachers. Teachers are the best. I used to be a teacher, too.

And it’s not that I don’t think teachers can’t choose great books for young people. Nor is it that I don’t value teacher-assigned, whole-class novels.

It’s just that I believe that young people should be able to choose their own books, ones that speak to them, that they’re curious about, that they want to read.

This is why the Kindle Classroom Project is built from the ground up entirely by students, entirely with the books they request on the KCP Website.

The process is simple: If a book isn’t already in the library, a student may request it, and then the all-volunteer book-buying team purchases the book within 24 hours. The next day, the book is on the student’s Kindle, ready to read.

The part part is that every book that a student requests is also made available to the 2,000 other students in the program. The book never goes missing, and never gets worn out, and there’s nothing teachers need to do to keep track of all these books that students read.

Instead, teachers can spend more time connecting their students to good books they want to read.

Let me know if you have questions about the KCP Library or the Kindle Classroom Project in general. Thank you for reading this post!