Celebrating diverse lit on #ReadAcrossAmericaDay!
- *Written March 4, 2020.
Hey ya’ll its WORD! Box Wednesday (#WBW) it’s a thing, I’m making it a thing:)
Monday we celebrated the national literacy campaign, Read Across America. Launched in 1998 by the National Education Association (NEA), Read Across America is the nation’s largest celebration of reading.” March 2 became the unofficial start of the year long celebration to coincide with the the birthday of Theodor Seuss Geisel aka Dr. Seuss and to kick off National Reading Month. However, after the publication of The Cat is Out of the Bag: Orientalism, Anti-Blackness, and White Supremacy in Dr. Seuss’s Children’s Books by Conscious Kid (go follow them) surfaced. These finding applied pressure to READ Across America to reevaluate their message. Which in turn they no longer promote Dr. Seuss or use them in their logo. They have partnered with We Need Diverse Books (WNDB) to make sure that literacy promotion practices are done with an inclusive eye.
So after that brief history lesson we at Cultured Books were proud to celebrate Read Across America Day as we helped the WORD! Initiative and Keep St. Pete Lit bring WORD! Book Boxes, a free book exchange to communities in South St. Pete. We had a blast sorting through donations of books and fulfilling book orders!
The project is a partnership between the WORD! Initiative, a collective of Black Women dedicated to organizing real discussions and transformative experiences through Arts & Culture and Keep St Pete Lit! which celebrates and promotes greater St. Petersburg’s literary community — past, present and future — through arts, education and events with a literary twist. There are currently four locations with plans to add more!
If you are a business interested in becoming a host site or would like to make a tax-deductible donation towards the purchase of culturally inclusive and uplifting books please visit keepstpetelit.org/support.
Follow:
✌🏿🤟🏿📚,
Lorielle
Cultured Books
