Jake at Time after Time has a Sunday Post Challenge and every week he provides a theme…this week’s theme is SURROUNDINGS.

Photo courtesy of http://www.buzzfeed.com/summeranne/21-pictures-of-children-in-the-wake-of-hurricane-s

Hurricane Sandy affected millions of people…many of them young children.

For some, their surroundings will be changed forever.

Newspaper headlines tell the sad tale.

No date set to reopen hospitals that evacuated during Hurricane Sandy – NY Daily News

http://www.thestreet.com/story/11751677/1/hurricane-sandy-in-pictures.html

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/10/28/nyregion/hurricane-sandy.html

One of the programs hit hardest was the Reach Out and Read program that operates at Bellevue Hospital.  Reach Out and Read is a nationwide literacy program that encourages doctors and pediatricians to interact with their young patients while they examine them.  Books are given to the kids…and parents are encouraged to read them with their children.

http://learningmatters.tv/blog/about-us/about-us-staff/watch-reach-out-and-read/10505/

According to John Merrow, special PBS NewsHour correspondent, “The Reach Out and Read program can be found in 5,000 medical centers across the country. It touches almost four million mostly low-income children, at a cost of $10 per child, per year. Bellevue’s program is one of the largest.”

But Bellevue Hospital was heavily impacted by Hurricane Sandy and thousands of picture books were destroyed.

Watching the news reports, I began to think about what I could do to help.  After all, this is Picture Book Month where people who are passionate about picture books are celebrating their importance.

So I contacted Claudia Aristy, director of the Bellevue Hospital Reach Out and Read program, and offered to send her two copies of Show Me How…she was excited and told me she interested in using it as part of the program with her counselors and families.

I also sent a small check and promised to earmark my book profits in the month of December to help buy new picture books for their program.

If you are moved by the plight of Bellevue’s Reach Out and Read program and want to help, you can visit their website and donate…even just enough to buy ONE book…if everyone did that, they would quickly fill their bookshelves again.

http://www.reachoutandread.org/

WE HAVE TO GAB (GIVE A BOOK)

BEFORE THEY CAN ROAR

(REACH OUT AND READ)

If you are an author or illustrator and would like to donate a copy of one of your books, I’m sure they would really appreciate that…when I spoke to Claudia, she advised me to send my books to her address as the clinic was still closed.  If I receive any book donations, I will pack them up and ship them out directly to her.  Perhaps we can get some publishers interested in joining this campaign!

Because these are the surroundings we want young children to have!

And, since this is Picture Book Month…here is some more Picture Book News!

The second episode of my new Google+/YouTube series: Show Me How: Picture Books and Crafts for Kids has been uploaded.  Believing in oneself is a challenge.  I read “The Little Red Caboose” and make a Geometric Shape Train picture.  I hope you will watch the video…and pass it along to anyone who has young children.

http://youtu.be/BFccffrlej4

Each week I hope to show parents how easy it is to participate with their kids…it takes only a few minutes to read the story…and a few minutes to do the craft activity…but the rewards are SO BIG.  Most of the stories and crafts I will use come from my book, Show Me How! Build Your Child’s Self-Esteem Through Reading, Crafting and Cooking.

There’s a new review of Show Me How on Barbara’s GradeOnederful blog: http://www.gradeonederful.com/2012/11/thank-yous-shout-out-give-away-and-tic.html

I’ll also be joining author and educator Susan Case in a Thanksgiving Week Google+ Hangout today, Monday, November 11 at 3pm EST, for our segment called “Acts of Random Kindness”.  I will be reading “Norman the Doorman”, the story about a very special mouse whose life was devoted to being kind to others.  Susan has a wonderful craft activity to share that will encourage children to embrace kindness and reaching out to help others.

And then on Tuesday, there will be more picture book reading and crafting when I share “The Day No One Played Together” by Donalisa Helsley and make a Story Book of Friends…as part of the Google+ Thanksgiving special: #turkeytalk

Want more information about Jake’s Sunday Post?

 http://jakesprinters.wordpress.com/

Related articles

• SUNDAY POST: Surroundings (freezeindigo27.wordpress.com)
• Sunday post: Surroundings (scrapydo.wordpress.com)
• “Perfect Picture Book”- Friday (thepatientdreamer.com)
• PPBF: The Little Red Caboose…Building Self-Esteem in Children (viviankirkfield.wordpress.com)
• Perfect Picture Book Friday: Norman the Doorman (viviankirkfield.wordpress.com)