This is an excerpt from Chapter Seven of The Read-Aloud Handbook by Jim Trelease (Penguin, 2006, 6th edition). For a list of all topics covered here and in the print edition see Chapter Seven list.

Chapter 7: The Print Climate in the Home,
   School, and Library—continued

llow me to introduce you to some people who, largely unknown to each other, successfully took on the challenge of changing the print climate in four different communities. Here are two men and two women who have lived George Bernard Shaw's expression, “Some men see things as they are and ask why? I dream things that never were and ask why not?”

Let's start with Danny Brassell. Back in 1995, Brassell was struggling to keep his head above water as a beginning teacher in a district so dysfunctional the state of California was forced to take it over — Compton Unified, located 26 freeway miles north of "The Magic Kingdom." One of the first things Brassell noticed was the lack of books in his classroom and school. Considering the students were coming from homes that suffered the same deficiency, this was intolerable.

'The Revenge of the Librarian's Son'

California's antagonistic relationship with books and libraries, however, was an old story to the 23-year-old Brassell. He remembered how the 1978 passage of the state's famous "Proposition 13" had reduced property taxes statewide and, in the process, devastated state and school libraries, costing his librarian-father his job in San Diego and forcing a family move out of state. In light of that, if you were making a movie about this, you might describe what Danny did next as "The Revenge of the Librarian's Son."

First, he created his own classroom library, including bound autobiographies his students wrote that fired their enthusiasm for reading. When the superintendent dropped in for a visit, he asked if Brassell needed anything.

"Sure," he replied, "a reading carpet." Despite a positive response, it never arrived. So Brassell went scavenging at a local carpet store, told them what he needed, and they agreed to give him any decent stuff they ripped out of people's houses when they were laying new rugs. What they actually delivered was enough to carpet Brassell's whole school and two more besides. "This told me that lots of times all you have to do is ask—ask and make sure you write a thank you note," he told to me. "In fact, once you identify yourself as a teacher, most people want to give you a discount."

The next task was to create the school's library. Contacting some friends at a private school brimming with celebrities' kids in the wealthy Brentwood section of Los Angeles, Brassell asked if they could get the kids to donate the books they had outgrown. Bingo—2000 books! Next he created a nonprofit organization called Assignment Books, bent on rebuilding or creating Compton school libraries. "One thing I learned the hard way: Unless you have the principal on board, you're dead before you know it. After I raised 10,000 books for one Compton school library, a new principal came in and turned the library into a study hall."

esides convincing affluent friends and schools to donate their used children's books (or money, if they chose), Brassell was driving all over Southern California in his Ford Escort ("I could squeeze 1,000 books into it.") and stopping at every Salvation Army thrift shop he could find. "My father told me once, 'Whenever you come across an old book, page through it. In the old days, folks mistrusted banks and stored cash in their books.' Sure enough—$300 in a book at the Salvation Army. After I turned it in to the Major, I had the greatest relationship you could imagine with that shop." In three years of scavenging, Brassell collected 84,000 books for Compton school libraries. Meanwhile, up in the state capitol, Sacramento, the legislature was debating the sorry state of California reading scores and scrounging around for $195 million for more phonics materials.

For the moment, we leave Danny Brassell teaching his class and trawling suburbia for books, and move 50 miles north to Agoura Hills, where one day in 1998, eight-year-old Brandon Keefe was home from school with a cold and tagged along with his mother who had a board meeting at a local residential treatment center for children. She'd been a volunteer and board member there for 25 years but something was going to happen that day that would change her life. While playing with his video game in the corner that day, Brandon also was aware of what the grownups were discussing—the difficulties in creating an adequate library for the facility's children, with most of the talk centering on the expense.

Back in his third-grade classroom the next day, the subject of community service came up and Brandon's teacher asked if anyone had any suggestions. Brandon's response was, "My mom's orphanage needs books." Soon a plan was devised: Since most of his affluent classmates had an abundance of books they'd either outgrown or never intended to read, why not a book drive to collect them for kids who had no books? Soon Brandon was speaking at morning assemblies and in classrooms, organizing and promoting the campaign.

Just before Winter break, Brandon's mom went to pick him up at school and instead of meeting a little boy with his backpack, she found a little entrepreneur surrounded by cartons containing 847 books he and his classmates had collected. "Merry Christmas, Mom!" he said.

Afterward, Robin Keefe, a strong advocate for volunteerism, kept thinking to herself, If these children could achieve this, others could as well. The sense of pride and accomplishment shouldn't be theirs alone. Why not offer other children the same opportunity? With that in mind, she and Brandon formed a nonprofit organization called BookEnds whose purpose was to connect individual volunteer schools with needy ones, but from there, all the work, organizing, and distributing would be student-driven.

The result has been extraordinary. To date, more than 120,000 students have donated and distributed one million books to 240,000 needy students in greater Los Angeles schools, while creating 82 school and youth center libraries. Community reaction has been positive enough to draw a few big-name donors out of the woodwork to offer financial support, names like Verizon, Eisner, Boeing, Toyota, American Express, Disney, and Coca-Cola.

Maybe the lesson for adults in this is: the next time a boardroom of grownups is vexed by a problem, go out and find a kid with a video game, sit him in the corner and let him listen in.

It was inevitable that the Keefes and Danny Brassell should meet, see their common goals, and join forces. Today Brassell is an assistant professor in the teacher education department at California State University-Dominguez Hills and board member of BookEnds, Robin Keefe is president of BookEnds, and Brandon is a senior at UCLA, majoring in clinical science and accounting, and a public spokesperson for BookEnds.

PART TWO:

Two more people who changed the print climate in their communities.