Alanna hosts author and reading advocate Eric “Momentum” Walters and chair of Canadian School Libraries Anita Brooks Kirkland as we dissect some of their year of passionate intention to increase reading engagement in K-12 students. Eric suggests that all he needed to do was a little spark to the fire that teachers and school library staff already do. He wants more passion for student choice and voice in reading choices. Anita talks about how her research and data collection convinced key stakeholders to let the books go out during the summer. We round out this conversation by talking about the needs for virtual engagement in the library learning commons, building partnerships with public libraries and how to pivot in this pandemic.

The article that sparks this discussion: https://journal.canadianschoollibraries.ca/the-eric-walters-school-library-summer-lending-project/

Bibliovideo YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoRQbrmtvSYMRm1emqkhP8Q

Anita’s Webinar series on Building your Own Virtual Library: https://www.bythebrooks.ca/build-your-own-vllc/

Shoutouts to Orca Books, The Canadian Children’s Book Centre, Michael Marchenko, Debbie and Ruth Ohi, Eugenie Fernandez, TD Summer Reading Program