Inspring Young Citizens: The Library as a Forum for Engagement

I was interested in this topic because I believe, strongly that the library's function as a community center requires it to be a place of civic engagement. I liked the idea of using the library to encourage young people to become more actively minded.
The panel consisted of three authors, Anne Sibley O'Brien, Phillip Hoose, and Lita Judge, as well Kelley McDaniel, a school librarian from Maine, and Kirsten Cappy, a children's literature advocate also from Maine. Each author wrote about activism in some sort of form, and all were engaged in citizenship projects related to the books. In the case of O'Brien and Hoose, McDaniel and Cappy were involved.
Lita Judge wrote Pennies for Elephants (true story of children who raised money to get elephants for the Franklin Park Zoo in 1914) and One Thousand Tracings (the true story of her grandmother who sent food, clothing, etc. to European families after World War II). Projects included getting children to have penny drives to support a cause in which they support, writing letters to local newspaper to explain the cause, and to become interested in the news.
Phillip Hoose wrote two books about young activism, including It's Our World, Too: Young People Who are Making a Difference and Claudette Colvin: Twice Towards Justice (the true story of a 15 year old African American girl in Montgomery, Alabama who refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white passenger almost a year before Rosa Parks did the same. She later helped take the case to the Supreme Court as a plaintiff in Browder vs. Gayle). The citizenship project for the book on Claudette Colvin included students at Kelley McDaniel's school creating "ads" for a city bus in Portland, Maine telling Colvin's story. This took much effort by Kirsten Cappy who enlisted the help of the NAACP, the Maine College of Art, as well as the local bus service. The students created ad size posters for the entire bus which came to the school and which was viewed by Claudette Colvin herself. The pictures were amazing!
Anne Sibley O'Brien wrote, along with her son, After Gandhi: One Hundred Years of Nonviolent Resistance. Her son, Perry, had no experience writing for young people and so wanted to know the audience. Anne and Perry met with some students from Kelley's library who called themselves Gandhi Publishing and gave input on the book, including helping to come up with another individual to be named based on their own research.
In addition, Kelley also has started an intergenerational study group based on concepts in Rushworth Kidder's Moral Courage in which students and adults mentor one another and read, among other titles, After Gandhi.
In order to create engagement in the library, Kelley recommended the following guidelines:

• Be informed.
• Be inspired
• Seek out new ideas
• "Develop a bias for 'yes"'

Recommende website: civilrightsteaching.org