Florida's Miami-Dade area has extended the idea of community-wide reading programs to include kids with its One Picture Book, One Community project, which launched on October 8 with The Scaredy Cats by Barbara Bottner, illustrated by Victoria Chess (Simon & Schuster) as the first featured title.
The program, sponsored by the Florida Center for the Literary Arts, the City of Miami Parks and Recreation Department, WLRN Radio and Television, the Miami Herald and Humana Family, will provide one copy of Scaredy Cats to every first grade student in the Miami-Dade public schools. Each of the 900 area first-grade teachers will also receive a copy, along with an activity guide, and a copy will also be distributed to each elementary school library in the system. The program hopes that an enjoyable reading experience will help encourage children and families to read at home.
Activities based on the book will be offered at various bookstores, libraries and parks for children in after-school programs. Teachers and students will take part in a variety of planned events as well.
Raising awareness of the program, Bottner, a Hollywood, Fla., resident, did a reading for parents and children at an open house on October 8 and will appear at the Miami Book Fair on November 8. The Miami Herald has printed 430,000 copies of a promotional poster and S&S has provided 3,000 Scaredy Cat bookmarks and a number of books.
