Successor To Brooks, Sandburg

“A decade ago this month, Kevin Stein was chosen for a daunting task: following two Pulitzer Prize winners, Gwendolyn Brooks and Carl Sandburg, as the poet laureate of Illinois,” Caryn Rousseau reports for AP.
“Ten years later the Bradley University professor has put his own signature on a position that is unpaid but considered crucial to widening appreciation for the art form. He has created a state poetry website and donates money out of his own pocket to buy poetry books for libraries across the state.”

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Posted on December 26, 2013

Narrated By Jon Langford

Now Biram, now Andre, now Hancock and Robbie; oh Cory, on Loveless, on JC and Bobby – Bare Jr. he meant.

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Posted on December 18, 2013

Plus: LGBT Library Reopens & EFF’s List

“A few months ago, our Books Department was contacted by the Cook County Sheriff’s office,” Open Books says in its latest update.
“We were told that as part of their new Literacy and Education Initiative, the Department of Corrections wanted to create libraries throughout the 11 facilities of the county jail system, but they were having trouble acquiring enough books that were content-appropriate and in good condition.
“The largest single site pre-trial detention center in the U.S., the Cook County Department of Corrections houses about 9,000 inmates daily and admits approximately 100,000 people each year.
“The Sheriff’s office estimates that 65% of the inmates are functionally illiterate, which means they read at about a 7th-grade level or below.
“Up until now, inmates interested in reading had to rely on gifts of books from employees or families as there was no library within the system, aside from the legally-required law libraries.
“And that lack of access to books contributed to an ongoing problem: penal institution records show that the chance of inmates returning to prison drops to 16% if they receive literacy help, down from 70% if they do not.

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Posted on December 17, 2013

Ben Affleck Aboard

“The most checked-out book from the Chicago Public Library this year was the thriller Gone Girl by Ukrainian Village-based author Gillian Flynn,” Kyla Gardner reports for DNAinfo Chicago.
Let’s take a look.
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“Marriage can be a real killer. One of the most critically acclaimed suspense writers of our time, New York Times bestseller Gillian Flynn, takes that statement to its darkest place in this unputdownable masterpiece about a marriage gone terribly, terribly wrong. As the Washington Post proclaimed, her work ‘draws you in and keeps you reading with the force of a pure but nasty addiction.’ Gone Girl’s toxic mix of sharp-edged wit with deliciously chilling prose creates a nerve-fraying thriller that confounds you at every turn.”

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Posted on December 16, 2013

Plus: Giving The Gifts Of Literacy, Life & Comics

1. Tolton Transforming Lives.
“At age 57, Tina Wellington is starting over,” Robert McCoppin writes for the Tribune.
“Growing up on Chicago’s West Side, Wellington only reached a fifth-grade reading level. In years past she got caught up in alcohol, drugs, prostitution and jail. Now she’s trying to turn her life around, hoping to work in child development and eventually run her own restaurant, with help from the Tolton Adult & Family Literacy Center.

“I’ve got a second chance,” she said. “It’s like being a child in an adult’s body. I’m excited to get to school.”

“As part of De La Salle Institute, a Catholic high school on the South Side, the Tolton Center specializes in turn-around stories like Wellington, people who have taken a wrong turn and are now trying to make up for it.”
Click through for the rest.

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Posted on December 5, 2013