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Illustrators

‘Books In Hand’ Initiative Aims To Bring Books to Students Across Westchester

May 13, 2020 by Lauren Rosh

The Chappaqua Children’s Book Festival (CCBF) is teaming up with Barnes & Noble, End Book Deserts and One Book Westchester to bring books to students in pockets of Westchester as part of a campaign called Books in Hand.

CCBF founder Dawn Greenberg said these three initiatives are using their platforms to raise money to create book packs for students.

“We know some kids have no books in their home and we will make sure the kids have books through the end of the school year and into the summer,” Greenberg said. “Normally they would go to the libraries after the school year but now it isn’t looking likely that they will be able to do that.”

The group will start by distributing books to Mount Vernon and White Plains. Books in Hand also hopes to expand their reach to Ossining, Yonkers and Mount Kisco public schools.

Financial Asset Management Corporation (May 2020 version)
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Literacy Initiative

CCFB is a volunteer group made up of members of the community that gives both families and kids the opportunity to meet authors and illustrators. On their website, the mission statement below their logo is “putting a book in the hands of every child.” CCFB and the Board of Cooperative Educational Services launched a literacy initiative in January called One Book Westchester. This group’s goal is to hold events around the county and form a county-wide book club.

Also passionate about providing books to students is educator Dr. Molly Ness. She founded “End Book Deserts”, a podcast about the importance of building book oases in high poverty communities. Her main goal is to advocate for the value of books in communities and raise awareness according to her website.

Greenberg said the groups are collaborating by working with teachers and literacy experts to put together a list of books and authors that will appeal to different grade levels. They are also working toward possibly getting Skype visits from authors to some of the kids. Barnes & Noble will then sort the books by grade, Books In Hand will distribute to the district and the district will distribute to the students.

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Dr. Gayle White-Wallace is the Director of Pre-Kindergarten and Standards Administrator- ELA/Literacy, Reading and Social Studies at the Mount Vernon City School District. White-Wallace said that when the district receives the books, they will either send them to the student’s homes or offer them for pick up at some of the schools.

The students will then use the books for a number of different activities possibly including making a social media account for a character in a book and posting on their page as if they were the character tagging the school in the posts so administration and teachers can see the work students are doing.

The Superintendent’s Reading Challenge, a Mount Vernon City School elementary reading initiative that encourages students to read throughout the year will also use these books. The purpose of the challenge is to instill good reading habits in children and show students how enjoyable reading can be. According to New York State guidelines, students are mandated to read 25 books by the end of the academic year.

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The superintendent’s challenge reading goals are as follows:

  • Prekindergarten: 15 books read with a parent
  • Grades K-2: 40 sight word books and/or leveled readers
  • Grades 3-6: 30 chapter books

Teachers and administrators encourage students to complete the challenge through the use of after-school book clubs, a book of the month and a bulletin board in class indicating the number of books each student has read.

Upon completing the challenge, students can receive a raffle ticket to win prizes at a celebration where everyone who met the goal can attend.

“The libraries are closed, so the kids are not able to go to the library and there are students who do not have access to technology,” White-Wallace said. “So we want to make sure we can get books in the hands of students that way they have material to read that will support their reading level and fluency.”

All funds raised by the Books in Hand initiative will go toward purchasing books for schools like the Mount Vernon City School District. The group hopes to distribute books to the districts by mid-May.  If you have additional questions about the Books in Hand initiative, please write to:  Chappbook@yahoo.com

If you would like to contribute to Books in Hand, the fundraiser link can be found here: https://www.gofundme.com/f/books-in-hands-in-westchester-county

Filed Under: Stay Connected Tagged With: authors, Board of Cooperative Educational Services, Book Packs, books, Books in Hand, Chappaqua Children’s Book Festival, community, End Book Deserts, Illustrators, Libraries, Mount Vernon City School District, One Book Westchester

Discovering the Chappaqua Children’s Book Festival

November 13, 2019 by The Inside Press

The Chappaqua Children’s Book Festival (CCBF) takes place annually in downtown Chappaqua on a Saturday in the fall. Over 140 prominent and beloved children’s book authors and illustrators come from all over the United States to attend and meet fans, sign books and participate in panel discussions and story time. Visitors arrive from throughout the tristate area. Sponsors providing literacy-themed children’s activities fill the blacktop and church field at Church of St. Mary, the Virgin. Five different food trucks offer snacks and lunch. The Great Chappaqua Bake Sale provides sweet treats for a good cause.

CCBF, which turned seven in 2019, is a purely volunteer effort and requires hundreds of volunteers during the festival and on the days beforehand. Local scout troops, community organizations and individuals are encouraged to get involved.

More information about CCFB can be found at ccbfestival.org and on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. No admission charge. Books are available for purchase. A list of its annual sponsors and information about becoming a sponsor are available at the website or by calling 914 263-5566.

 

Courtesy of the Chappaqua Children’s Book Festival

Filed Under: Discover New Castle Tagged With: Book Authors, Chappaqua Children’s Book Festival, Illustrators, Panel Discussions, The Great Chappaqua Bake Sale

Beloved Literary Duo: The Van Fleets Life as a Two-Author Family

August 30, 2017 by Janie Rosman

Matt and Mara Van Fleet and a couple best buds. Photo by Grace Bennett

Tucked behind a main street in Chappaqua is a curved road where nature and homes appear whimsical as in stories. The house behind a tree with gnarled branches is where children’s authors Mara and Matt Van Fleet inspire educational curiosity.

Sourced with talent incorporated from their background, Matt and Mara bring color, texture, science and art into their novelty and interactive books. Their focus is getting kids to read at an early age and having adults read books to toddlers when they’re beginning to read.

A biology student at Syracuse University, Matt authored children’s books for more than 20 years. “I did a cartoon panel cartooning, and after graduation I worked at a hospital lab in the city, taking art classes at night,” he said. Nine months later he quit and became secretary to the art director at Grosset & Dunlap publishers.

“We used typewriters so I’d type letters and eventually learned book design,” Matt said, and while he didn’t set out to become a children’s author, fate said otherwise. His 1992 book One Yellow Lion introduced kids to counting with a clever accordion fold format that ended with “You know us all, from one to ten–/ Can you count us up again?’’

While freelancing at Dial books (part of Penguin Books USA), now wife Mara showed a book prototype to the publisher at a staff meeting. “They signed it up on the spot,” she smiled. The former art director and book product developer at Reader’s Digest Children’s Books in Chappaqua now publishes with Simon & Schuster and grins.

“I love doing it.”

Answering the question, “What’s it like being part of a two-author family?” Matt jokingly pointed to the sunroom. “She works here, and I work there (on the other side of the house).”

Their older son Alex recently graduated college, “and his desk was across from my desk,” Matt said. “In the biggest room of the house,” Mara joked. Alex shared a creative room with his dad that once had a fully stocked aquarium that formerly housed a millipede, a Praying mantis, an African water frog, a bullfrog they raised from a tadpole and two or three kinds of chameleons –a throwback to Matt’s days as a biology student.

Younger son Ryan, a senior at Horace Greeley High School, shares a working space with his mom. Creative in his own way, he plans to study vocal performance and music education at college. Matt’s first book features Alex as a youngster on the back cover, and when Ryan was born he drew them both on the back cover of his books. “Now they’re always youngsters,” he joked.

As children their audience’s age, Matt and Mara read Maurice Sendak: Mara chose Where the Wild Things Are, and Matt read from his Nutshell Library and Martha Sanders’ book Alexander and the Magic Mouse.

Mara prefers oil pastels for their rich appearance noticeable in her favorite book Three Little Mermaids. Her grandmother was a fashion illustrator for The New York Times in the 1920s, and her mom, also a talented illustrator, used to draw her mermaids, she said. “My grandmother was a very talented artist, and her portfolio’s pretty cool. She inspired me.”

Mara Van Fleet signing books at the Chappaqua Children’s Book Festival
Until her most recent book Mama’s Pajamas, Mara’s books were created for girls and included fur, sequins, fabrics and other materials for kids to identify the sensation of touch.

Alphabet, a book which identifies several unusual animals for each letter of the alphabet, reflects Matt’s science background; in Dance, each animal was clothed or had a prop. His books may be too young for older kids, who are interested in moving parts and how they were assembled. “I have one that’s taken apart so they can see how the gears move and how it works,” he said.

“The process of creating our books is more difficult than creating a picture book, because of the interactive elements involved” he reflected. “For a counting book, the audience is always there, and in the picture book market, as kids get older, it becomes more difficult to write a book that will become popular. Each book has a theme,” he said: days of the week or opposites or colors; One Yellow Lion was followed by a book about shapes and then a 3D-shapes books. “This one’s a little different,” he said, pointing to Dance, composed by songwriter and friend Dave Bickler. Its main character, a little chick, learns to dance with help from animal friends, who move when kids pull cardboard tabs along the book’s edge.

Picking up DOG, he identified neighborhood and friends’ pets in the concept book of opposites. A mini-studio in their kitchen was where the canines struck adorable doggie poses.

“This was our pug Boris, this is Ryan’s pre-school teacher’s dog, this dog used to live over here, this dog still lives in Chappaqua, and this dog lives here.”

Their books, protected by acetate, can withstand kids tugging, pulling and touching. Some titles, like Mara’s mix-and-match The Very Mixed Up Princess – through which children can create more than 300 different sentences and lends itself to helping them learn sentence structure–are found in the Chappaqua Library.

Even though Matt’s initial two-book-per-year pace has decreased to one book annually, he admitted, “The first book is always exciting.” Both are working on new projects, and while privy to this information, The Inside Press will keep it under wraps for now. For more information, visit www.vanfleetbooks.com.

Matt and Mara Van Fleet will be attending and signing books at the Chappaqua Children’s Book Festival on October 14.

Filed Under: Cover Stories Tagged With: authors, books, Chappaqua Children’s Book Festival, Children's Book Authors, Family, Illustrators, Mara Van Fleet, Matt Van Fleet, Van Fleet, Work

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