Chicago Launches “Read Green, Live Green” Summer Reading Program
by Kenny Luna, North Babylon, NY on 06.19.08
In case you live in Chicago and don’t have enough green reasons to be proud of the city, Mayor Daley recently announced that the theme of this year’s summer reading program is “Read Green, Live Green”.
As with all summer reading programs there’s a focus on getting kids to read, but here they’re also offering adults the opportunity to take part in a series of discussion groups aimed at celebrating nature while exploring the threats to it.
"Read Green, Live Green" Program Highlights
The program itself runs through August and offers books, reading tours and performances for both adults and children on such critical environmental issues as climate change, energy conservation and even farming.
And the folks behind it are quick to point out that roughly 45,000 kids read more than 1,000,000 books during last year’s summer reading program, which means there’s a terrific chance that a whole generation of Chicago school children will be reading about going green all summer long.
So hats off to the city of Chicago for making this summer reading program a green read indeed. Perhaps next year other cities and towns will pick up the ball and run with it, as a summer program like this can have an impact on kids for the rest of their lives.
More on Green Book Programs
Book Swapping a Greener Choice for Book Lovers
Renting College Books: Greenwash or Green Choice?
Via: The Chicago Tribune
This initiative sounds great. Kudos to Mayor Daley! I definitely join the call for other mayors with green agenda, such as Mayor Newsom of San Francisco and others, to join him and make the summer of 2009 the summer of green reading (ain't sound too catchy like 'the summer of love', but we can work on the name..).
btw - in the UK, there was last summer an interesting program named 'The Big Wild Read' that encouraged children in the UK to go the libraries and read books through the summer holidays. You can check it out at: http://www.bigwildread.co.uk/
Raz Godelnik
Eco-Libris
http://www.ecolibris.net
If they are not promoting library's then the 'green' reading has less of an impact ... thing of all the wasted paper in america, book sales are some of the concern. A book trading program might be a nice addition to the cool program
When I was little- between 4 and about 11- my mom brought me to the library all the time. Then we just stopped. To this day I forget it exists and almost never think to check the library before buying a book.
This is partly because my reading tastes have grown farther from the mainstream over the years, so that my library rarely has the books I want to read. However, I do make sure to have trees planted for the books I buy so that I don't cause any net deforestation.