What is BookMentors.org?
A New Kind of Literacy Nonprofit
BookMentors.org is a non-profit, which uses micropatronage to supply teachers, students, and librarians in high-needs schools with books. Centered on a continuously updated list of children's and YA literature, BookMentors.org is a place where you can give and receive books, as well as ideas. Teachers and librarians request, receive, and recommend books. Donors recommend and buy books for teachers. Students benefit from all the shared books and thoughts. Everyone gets to write tributes to their favorite children's and YA books.
A Resource for Teachers and Students in High-Needs Schools
Lack of access to books affects the literacy development of students in poor communities. The ratio of books to children in middle-income neighborhoods is approximately 13 books per child. The ratio of books to children in low-income neighborhoods is approximately 1 book to 300 children.* BookMentors wants to even out these ratios by supplying teachers and librarians in high-needs schools with free books for children to read in class, at home, on the bus, wherever they will be enjoyed and valued.
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* Patricia A. Edwards. “Access to books makes a difference”. Reading Today, April/May 2011.
A Community of Readers, Teachers, Librarians, Students, Writers, and Publishers
All these groups spend a lot of time thinking about children's and YA literature, but each of these groups rarely gets the chance to share their passion for books with those outside their immediate community. BookMentors brings all these different groups together to share their insights.
What Can You Do On BookMentors.org?
Write a tribute to a book you adored in third grade. Request an exciting new graphic novel for a reluctant reader in your class. Offer to purchase a great age-appropriate book on global warming for fifth graders. Thank a donor for supplying the books necessary to run guided reading groups. Recommend a recently published anthology of poetry. Help your son pick out books to buy for other students. Give your uncle's favorite YA novel to a tenth grader on your uncle's birthday. Discover an excellent professional book on teaching with literature. Suggest a book your kids loved for the list of available books. There are as many ways to give and receive books, as well as ideas, on BookMentors.org as there are readers willing to join us in passing reading along to the next generation.
What About Ebooks?
BookMentors loves books with real pages and books without real pages. Methods for purchasing, delivering, and storing ebooks in schools is still evolving, and we are enthusiastic about including ebooks soon. On our website teachers and librarians will have the opportunity to tell us how they are currently using ebooks and how they would like to use ebooks in the future. From what we learn from teachers about ebooks usage we will craft an ebook donation system to best meet their needs.
Why Does BookMentors.org Matter?
So many avid readers have memories of the teacher, parent, librarian, friend, or acquaintance who shared their love of a particular book with them as a child or young adult, the person who showed them the possibilities and knowledge inherent in literature. Readers need the inspiration of other readers to grow and thrive. BookMentors.org hopes to pass this tradition of mentoring on in a new way, suitable to a socially-connected world, where access to books is, unfortunately, not universal.
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