Anna Egan Smucker

 
 
Here are some photos of me at the ABLE Families Afterschool Program in Kermit, WV.  The kids were great.  They were so attentive and enthusiastic, and had lots of good questions about NO STAR NIGHTS.  They had heard the story read aloud earlier in the week and had been doing art and writing activities inspired by the book.  When I walked in they were being served Tabitha's homemade cabbage rolls!  A little bit of Weirton in Mingo County, WV!!  The program, with help from a WV Humanities Council grant, bought each child a copy of NO STAR NIGHTS.  The afternoon ended with an autograph session that allowed me to talk to each child individually as I signed the books.  

 The ABLE Program works to "confront the systemic causes of poverty in northern Mingo County, WV.  Check out their website at http://www.ablefamilies.org and you can't help but be impressed with their important and far-reaching projects. 
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-- reading aloud to my three-year-old grandson, Aaron.
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video credit:  Appalachian Power
 
 

Recently I did a program for parents on the importance of reading aloud. In that presentation, I stressed that reading-aloud ranks right up there with loving, feeding, and clothing their children. When my children were little, the best time of the day for me was at night when I sat in bed with them reading wonderful books. Now I look forward to doing that with my grandsons.

I know that I am a writer because I love to read. (I don't think a person can be a writer unless they are a reader.) And how did I become such a book-lover? I was lucky enough to have been read aloud to when I was a young child.

On the vital and far-reaching importance of reading aloud, children's author Mem Fox says, "If parents understood the huge educational benefit and intense happiness brought about by reading aloud to their children, and if every parent--and every adult caring for a child--read aloud a minimum of three stories a day (20 minutes) to the children in their lives, we could probably wipe out illiteracy within one generation." That's a bold statement, but I believe it's true. And wouldn't that change the world for the better! So, spread the word . . . Read-aloud!