Light the Way Award Goes to Rogers (AR) Public Library

SLJ Staff -- School Library Journal, 2/5/2008 9:56:00 AM

The Rogers Public Library in Arkansas is winner of the first Light the Way Award for a collaborative program that trains bilingual teens to help elementary school students with their English skills.

Sponsored by Candlewick Press and the Association for Library Service to Children, the award honors Newbery-winning author Kate DiCamillo and encourages innovative library programs that cater to underserved populations.

Those served by the Rogers Library’s "Bilingual Teens as Teachers and Tutors" program are mostly Spanish-speaking children from families of migrant workers who rarely use the public library. The library will also receive a $5,000 check.

 Two Light the Way honor winners are the Port Isabel Public Library in Port Isabel, TX, and the Hancock County Library System in Bay St. Louis, MS. Each will each receive checks for $1,040, and all winners will get a complete set of DiCamillo’s works and a signed print from the author’s first picture book, Great Joy (Candlewick, 2007).

Port Isabel Public Library, located in one of the most poverty-stricken regions of the country, was cited for its"Children's Book Club to the Rescue" project, which enables preschool children of non-English speaking families gain literacy skills. 

The Hancock County Library System, located in one of the communities devastated by Hurricane Katrina, was honored for its "Pearlington Summer Reading Program," which is operating in a FEMA trailer and will use the money to re-establish a summer reading program next June.  

In an interview last year, DiCamillo said she was thrilled to hear about Light the Way. "Libraries meant so much to me personally; I always felt safe there," DiCamillo said. "And, coming from a single-parent home, it was a place where I felt welcome."