READ ACROSS AMERICA PROGRAM, MARCH 2, 2025 Update on changes to the Read Across America program for the 2024-2025 school year. Key Things for Local Leaders and Staff to Know • Effective August 31, 2019, NEA no longer has a • Focus of the program is on diverse books, and content will be driven by the Read Across America (print) Activity Calendar and digital version found at readacrossamerica.org. • Local leaders should promote and encourage Local leaders, staff, and Members to use the RAA Activity Calendar as their guide in planning RAA events. A copy of the print 2024-2025 calendar may be ordered at: readacrossamerica.org. Also, on the new web site, you’ll find a logo standards and usage guide. Find more resources at: readacrossamerica.org • Affiliates and Members may still conduct Seuss- themed events, so long as they meet the above restrictions. Seuss-related materials purchased through retailers may still be used at events.
licensing agreement with Dr. Seuss Enterprises. As a result, NEA Affiliates and Members may no longer use the old RAA logo with the Cat in the Hat leaning over U.S. map and the official mascot suits provided by Costume Specialties may no longer be used. • A new Read Across America logo has been developed and is now available at: readacrossamerica.org. Web sites, social media, and other digital and print communications should be updated with the new logo.
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suggestions for different age groups and provides ideas for applying lessons from the books to the classroom. Kicking off this school year, the book for August 2019 was All Are Welcome Here, written by Alexandra Penfold . “ No mat- ter how you start your day, what you wear, when you play. Or if you come from far away. All are welcome here.” The lively picture book sends a clear message that our public schools are places where every child is welcome. The calendar suggests hosting a community-building back-to- school event that opens opportunities for talking about individual differences, diversity, and how we can learn from each other. Lubna and Pebble, written by Wendy Meddour, the June 2020 book, explores the wrenching world of refugees where a little girl’s only friend is a treasured pebble she found on the beach where she landed with her father after fleeing war at home. Pebble listens to her stories; its smoothness comforts her when she’s scared. But one day, Lubna realizes that a Scholarships available for: USE BOOKS FEATURED IN THE CALENDAR ANY TIME OF THE YEAR
County, Va. Bauer, who is the past chair of NEA’s Read Across America Advisory Committee, adds that even if a book is featured in a particular month, it can be shared any time dur- ing the year. “Students in fourth grade hear the word ‘refugee’ but don’t have a good understanding of what that might mean. This book will help with their understanding,” she says. “I also have my students collect money using the ‘Trick or Treat for UNICEF’ program. This book will be another way to allow my students to understand where the UNICEF money goes and who it helps.” MIDDLE GRADE AND YOUNG ADULT BOOKS FEATURE DIVERSE THEMES AND CHARACTERS The Hero Next Door, featured in the Read Across America calendar in the middle-grade section, reminds students that not all heroes wear capes. They can look just like them. They can even be them. “The New Kid could have been my superhero name,” writes middle-grade novelist Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkov-
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ich, editor of The Hero Next Door, a collec- tion of middle-grade short stories from some of the best known diverse books authors. “School after school, classroom after classroom, playground after play- ground … I’d swoop in, hoping to dazzle and impress, save the day somehow. Each time I hoped to get it exactly right; each time I got it so, so wrong.” When she was the new kid again in sixth grade, Rhuday-Perkovich’s mother asked the principal to make sure she’d have classes with other educational support professionals high school seniors
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new boy in the “world of tents” might need Pebble more than she does. “ Lubna and Pebble is one of the books that I am looking forward to sharing,” says Carol Bauer, a fourth-grade teacher at Bethel El- ementary School in York
ILLUSTRATION: SUZANNE KAUFMAN Deadline for grant applications: March 31 Notification of awards: May 31 more info: GAE.org/grants
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