As New Haven dives into the Big Read, many of the books — and much of the reading — is coming from the corner of Dixwell where these two women, among others, keep kids engaged year-round.
The Big Read happens almost every day of the year at the sunny corner of Bristol and Ashmun streets, the home of The New Haven Reads Community Book Bank. Its attractive building, provided by Yale and across the street from Scantlebury Park and the Dixwell-Yale University Learning Center, is bursting with books and that good quietly buzzing reading atmosphere. The book bank has also been functioning as the distribution center for the thousand free copies of To Kill a Mockingbird.
The Independent dropped by on Monday night to find out where the books have been going. “We have almost none left,” said Christine Alexander, director of the book bank (pictured on the right in top photo, with Makana Ellis, director of the Dixwell-Yale center). “Actually we have about 40 left, and a including a dozen or so in Spanish, along with reading and teaching guides in both Spanish and English.”
So where have the books been distributed? “Oh, about 30 groups roughly have asked for and received books for their constituencies. These include schools and libraries. For example, I just delivered a bunch to the teachers and staff over at the Wexler-Grant School. I know the teachers there are reading and discussing the book and how to integrate it into the curriculum. Likewise the Troup Academy and Fair Haven Middle School and the library in Fair Haven requested a bunch.”
While Alexander was dropping off a copy of the movie version of To Kill a Mockingbird to Ellis for a screening of the film for the community tonight at the Dixwell-Yale center, there was lots of everyday reading action still going on at the book bank.
Miguel Veloz, a Yale freshman who works at the book bank, was manning the front desk with 12-year old Jason Mcghee, who attends Conte West Hills Magnet School. According to the log book on the desk in front of them, some 300 books were given away by the book bank this day alone. No information was available on whether any old dog-eared copies of Harper Lee’s novel were among them. The book bank, however, often receives in donations about 500 books a day, so there is always a net gain, and great books to choose from.
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Who avails themselves of the books? According to Maud Sandbo, the assistant director, who has been with the book bank since its founding six years, lots of the books stay in the New Haven Reads family. They are taken by the parents and family members of the 180 people, from kids to adults, who receive tutoring or ESL training at the book bank.
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Although New Haven Reads was founded as a book bank, gradually tutoring established itself, and by word of mouth the program has grown. Rocio Mendoza, for example, was taking ESL classes provided by the book bank when she was told by teachers at the Fair Haven Middle School that her daughter Monsserat could benefit from tutoring. Lo and behold, that could be provided, too, so now mother and daughter learn at the same place and sometimes at the same time.
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In fact, according to Sandbo, while most of the book bank’s tutored kids come from New Haven, and all across the city, some kids are from the Greater New Haven area, and a number also from Bridgeport. Half of the tutors, about 50, are undergraduate and graduate students from all the colleges and universities in the New Haven area, and the other half are adults, often retired, and a good handful of teachers.
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Monserrat’s tutor is Hank Kranichfeld. As one of the founders of a non-profit organization, Pula (the word means “rain” in the main language of Botswana), he has helped build and stock libraries inMalawi, Nigeria, Uganda, among other countries. “When there were extra books,” he said, “we found that the New Haven Reads Community Book Bank was a good place to give the books. One thing led to another, and I began to tutor here.”
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So is the book bank a book bank or a tutoring facility? “Obviously,” said Sandbo, “it’s evolved into both. The need is great. The kids often come from families where the parents are stressed and can’t work with them on homework as well as they’d like. So we supplement. It’s a joy to be with someone when they figure things out and learn to read, or move to a different level,” said Sandbo, whose enthusiasm for reading extends to her telling a reporter that he absolutely has to read her favorite book, C.S. Lewis’s Voyage of the Dawn Treader. “Its about a boy who goes on a journey and is transformed into a dragon because he’s mean and then some; he’s helped to return being a boy again.” It’s a story of redemption, she said, and she’s read it at least 20 times.
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The book bank needs children’s books and, most of all, people to sign up as tutors. “We have a hundred children on the waiting list for tutors, and it’s growing.” The book bank is open Monday to Friday 1 to 6 p.m., and Saturday noon to 4. Mondays through Wednesdays, they are open until 7 for tutoring. During these days of the Big Read, it’s also fun to travel across the street to the Dixwell-Yale University Learning Center to catch the movie of To Kill a Mockingbird.
p(clear). To contribute books or to sign up to tutor, call 752‑1923 or email here.
