Celebrating Black History Month with BookSmiles
Executive Program Director Barbyose Noisette reviewing books for our teams and programs.
When Larry Abrams read an article about KSC in the Philadelphia Inquirer in 2017 he was instantly interested in supporting our work in the community with his growing collection of books. Since that time he was interviewed with Jim Hardy for Storycorps (here) and reflected on how our partnership has fostered the growth of his non-profit from his garage to an expansive warehouse in Pennsauken, NJ. Like our founder Jim Hardy, Larry was a school teacher who found a need in the community that surpassed the hours of the school day. Upon first meeting, Larry says, “Jim Hardy was a teacher just like me… And I thought if he can do this…I can do this. But instead of soccer I can build something magnificent for books because every child should have books of their own. And I know a lot of the kids at Kensington Soccer don’t have a lot of books at home.” Amid the greater interest in supporting organizations with books, is a commitment to providing clients with books that they see themselves in. As we celebrate Black History Month we recognize the way this incredible partnership with BookSmiles helps us honor the contributions of Black people to history and culture throughout the year in the books we distribute to our players.
We distribute the books through the Soccer Athletes Value Education (SAVE) initiative. SAVE, a group of KSC employees Barbyose, Maria, and Carly, who are mainly led by Pat Hardy, has distributed books at Family Day - with the help of volunteers - our afterschool programs, and throughout our travel and recreational leagues. As our programming sharpens its focus on different age groups, SAVE has also expanded the library at the clubhouse to feature books for all ages and reading levels. Books range from cardboard books, to picture books, to chapter books, and span a variety of genres. The SAVE Initiative has been very intentional about incorporating books with characters and subjects that reflect the constellation of races, cultures and nationalities that are a part of our KSC community. As a former high school teacher, Larry is aware of the importance of emphasizing physical and intellectual development; he says, “I know this about Kensington Soccer. It’s not just about let’s kick the soccer ball around. You have to have balance. You have to excel in school, you have to become readers.”
Through his experience teaching English in Morristown and Lindenwold School Districts in New Jersey, Larry saw how the effects of book access vary across socioeconomic groups. “Back then I was like, why can’t kids in under-served in book deserts have the same amount of books as kids in wealthy communities?” Book access is directly tied to the disparities in college matriculation and education attainment that he noticed in the college prep curriculum among his students. As such, Larry is providing an avenue to help prepare people for college by providing diverse books. He explains ”If you’re in 9th grade and your reading level is a lower level, you might get accepted to a school but you’re not going to last because you are not able to do the reading. And so that’s why we’re really focusing our efforts, we’re doubling down and giving books to babies. We’re giving books into the hands of kids before they hit the fourth grade because once they hit that middle school it’s really tough if they don’t have the reading habit.” By creating an organization that has a plethora of books for school libraries, non-profit organizations like KSC, and even public places like laundromats, Larry is addressing needs for diverse, intellectually rigorous books, that can close opportunity gaps.
During his teaching tenure, Larry was a part of a shift from a more prescribed curriculum where summer required reading was by authors like George Eliot to an educational culture where teachers were given more autonomy with choosing books. He says, “In the latter part of my career I really encouraged choice. Like I would get money to buy Jason Reynolds’ stuff. I really liked that. And i had kids, boys, who had never read him before.” Like, “Wow, Mr. Abrams, “Long Way Down” that was the first book I ever read'.” As he used student and teacher feedback to shift popular classics like Silas Murders and Huckleberry Finn to a recommended reading list, he was able to create space in his classroom and organizational libraries for other books that centered Black stories. Larry noticed how the diverse books opened the doors for children to build their literacy. He continued, “I have seen, and I know when kids look at books, and on the cover there are kids that look like them it’s a hook. It’s a wonderful hook. It’s a hook towards more reading where you can read whatever you want to read and it doesn’t matter whether kids look like you or not, but that’s a hook.” As teachers and students got to collaborate with choosing books, he noticed that it had a positive impact on their development of reading habits and skills. BookSmiles honors that collaboration between teachers and students as well - as Janet describes, “They [teachers] come in with their lists that their kids have written. Sometimes they will put out a sheet of paper for their fourth graders, and like ‘write down things that you would like’...” She continues talking about a teacher who came in looking for the Dogman books for a specific student. Janet says, “He had a list with just the titles that he hadn’t read yet and she was saying like last year he didn’t know his sight words, and now he is devouring graphic novels. One of them I didn’t have on that shelf, but I was able to find it in our stock.” It is extra special to collaborate with an organization that is so intentional about connecting young readers with books that reflect their interests and experiences.
Larry started the foundation for this organization in his own sprawling classroom library and his books have been gifted to children in Philadelphia, South Sudan, Ghana, and soon will find a home in a newly constructed library in Malawi. Despite the global reach of BookSmiles, he is most focused on helping Philadelphia teachers and educational personnel build their capacity to give books to their pupils. If you or someone you know is a teacher in the Philadelphia area, please contact BookSmiles to learn more about how to fill your classroom library with books for your students.