ALLENTOWN, Pa. (AP) –
About 20 years ago, Kimberly Resh stood before a Kids Gap cashier, her 6-year-old daughter Mikayla behind her, with her wheelchair and feeding tube. Mikayla had numerous severe physical and intellectual disabilities from birth, and medical complications from them.
“What’s that?” came a young voice from behind.
Before Resh could turn around, her younger daughter, 3-year-old Lauren, began to explain.
“That’s my sister’s special tube,” she said. “My mom feeds Mikayla special milk through her special tube.”
Children, Resh realized, sometimes know best how to describe things to other children. She remembered this revelation a few years later when she donated a set of books on diverse topics and main characters – in terms of race, ethnicity, disability – to her daughter’s library at Lower Nazareth Elementary School. None of them were written by children.
Mikayla’s third grade class agreed to write her biography, which became the book published in 2006, “Our Friend Mikayla” – now one of several dozen books recommended by the Lehigh Valley Reads campaign, which has shifted its focus this year to building diverse at-home libraries for kids.
“Mikayla could not see herself in the book” – she functioned on an infant level – “but I think the kids could see that she deserved to be with them, and by writing the book, they were telling that story,” Resh said.
Lehigh Valley Reads, a literacy campaign of PBS39 and United Way of the Greater Lehigh Valley, has a goal of getting all of the region’s third graders reading on grade level by 2025. As of two years ago – the most recent data available from the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment – the region is about 65% of the way there, according to the campaign.
The campaign has several initiatives targeting attendance, summer reading and everyday learning at home, but when the pandemic forced students to stay home, organizers decided to shift focus toward helping families build home libraries, Director Angela Zanelli said.
Not long after, Minneapolis resident George Floyd was killed while in police custody, launching the nation into a racial reckoning. So organizers wanted to make sure the books being distributed represented diverse life experiences.
“We know there are a lot of kids reading books and they don’t see themselves represented,” Zanelli said. “Now Lehigh Valley Reads finds itself addressing and tackling two of the most important issues of our time: literacy and social justice.”
Since May, the campaign has distributed more than 7,500 books to families, often in tote bags handed over with food at meal pickup sites, or delivered directly to families in need that were identified by schools.
The campaign gets books through donations and some sponsorships from partner organizations or corporations.
A Michigan organization called Girls of the Crescent donated a slew of titles to the collection with female Muslim main characters, for example. Other titles, curated by campaign organizers and vetted by retired librarians, include characters who represent a blend of ethnicities, genders, sexualities and abilities.
A few years after “Our Friend Mikayla” published, Resh founded a nonprofit called Mikayla’s Voice to provide educational programming that includes children of all backgrounds and abilities. The nonprofit published two more books: “High Fives and a Big Heart,” about a boy with Down syndrome named Jeffrey, and “Super Brady – Always on the Move!” about a boy with autism, both written and illustrated by children.
In February, Resh approached Lehigh Valley Reads, which included the titles on its book list. Then Just Born, a longtime partner of Mikayla’s Voice, sponsored enough books so first through third graders at Marvine Elementary School in Bethlehem could take these books, one per grade level, home.
That provided a free book from Mikayla’s collection to 120 students, Principal Eric Fontanez said.
The school made an effort this year, through Title 1 funds, to equip every student from preschool to fifth grade with a book, with an emphasis on diversity, to help the students participate in Lehigh Valley Reads’ Million Minute Challenge. Specifically, Marvine wants its students to read 400 books, collectively, this year.
The school has a library stocked with diverse titles in its front lobby – take a book, leave a book.
It’s not at all common that children get to read books written by children, for children, about children with disabilities, Fontanez said.
The school’s student body is already economically and racially diverse, but having children read stories where they’re represented, and stories that help them learn about children’s experiences they might not know, spurs healthy conversation, he said.
“Having these stories, it just helps the kids to realize the diversity that our building alone has,” he said.
Just Born plans to support the book distribution at Marvine for as long as there is interest in it, Corporate Affairs Manager Meg Doud said.
There is still interest. Fontanez wants to continue the distribution the same way each year, so that as students move up through the grade levels, they get a different Mikayla’s Voice book, until they have the whole collection at home.
Mikayla died two years ago. She lived 24 years – 12 longer than her doctors thought – and Resh believes part of the reason was that she was included in everything – school classes, field trips, friend circles.
“As the world grows and changes, it’s so important to include absolutely everyone,” Resh said. “Mikayla had a wonderful life because of all her friends.”
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