Rose Garden Resident

Cover Story

Photograph by Vicki Thompson

Reading Aloud: Dianne Calvi reads 'Mañana Iguana' to first-graders at Luther Burbank School. The book is part of the new book case library recently donated to the school.

Reading Club

League donates books to Luther Burbank

By Mary Gottschalk

The ratio of books to children at Luther Burbank School has jumped dramatically, thanks to the women of Summit League.

More than a dozen league members visited Luther Burbank School recently to see the presentation of four Bookcase Libraries, one for each of the first-grade classrooms.

Excitement was high among the first-graders who sat in a semi-circle on the floor of the school library, staring at the four rolling bookcases filled with such classics as Stone Soup, Green Eggs and Ham and Beautiful Blackbird.

Along with those children's classics there were also books acknowledging the Hispanic heritage of the majority of Burbank's students, books such as Un lazo a la luna (Moon Rope) and First Day in Grapes about the son of migrant farm workers. Chico knows when the grape harvest begins, so does another school year in a new school where he will be a stranger.

The Bookcase Libraries, with 30 to 40 books in each one, are from Bring Me A Book Foundation, a Mountain View-based nonprofit group that encourages parent, caregiver and teacher involvement in reading aloud to young children.

The $600 to $700 cost of each Bookcase Library, as well as eight more donated to each of the kindergarten and second-grade classes at Burbank, came out of the $178,000 check Summit League members donated to Bring Me A Book.

The first-graders were attentive at the ceremonial check-passing, and one boy conjectured it would be enough to buy a new car. The real excitement came when it was time to cut the red ribbons across the front of the bookcases.

The children clamored to wield the scissors.

The 101-year-old Burbank School District has 550 students enrolled in kindergarten through eighth grade, with another 60 children in preschool.

The school library has 6,200 books, about 4,000 less than Richard Rodriguez, district superintendent, believes they need.

At present children are allowed to check out just one book a week.

The Bookcase Libraries will be in the classrooms, where children will be able to read them when they have free time as teachers will be able to pick a book and read it to the students.

"For us, this is really important because we service a low-income population and many of our students don't have ready access to books," Rodriguez said. "The majority of our students don't have books in their homes."

Marvelyn Maldonado, in her first year as principal at Burbank, is responsible for attracting the attention of the Bring Me A Book Foundation.

"I'm new to this school site, and as I was walking around classrooms my first week here, a new teacher said, 'You know, it would be great if I could get a new classroom library.'

"It is a great need, but the amount of money we can provide is limited," Maldonado said.

Wondering how to obtain what she calls "good-quality books," Maldonado set to work and heard about Bring Me A Book.

After going through the application process and what she describes as "several site visits and interviews and talking to a whole lot of people," it came together.

"Because we have high need in this area and we are in an unincorporated area of San Jose, they saw the need and decided they would see what they could do for us on multi-grade levels," Maldonado said.

Usually, donations are made to just one grade level, but foundation officials talked to the Summit League about sponsoring Burbank.

As a result, 16 classrooms at Burbank now have Bookcase Libraries.

Additionally, Summit League's donation is funding First Teachers Workshops at the school for parents and teachers. The foundation has promised that the libraries will be replenished on a regular basis to "ensure ongoing sustainability."

The league's check is also paying for 120 other Bookcase Libraries at other schools in Santa Clara County.

The 50-year-old league is fairly small, with just 48 active members and 61 sustaining members. Its primary fundraiser is a house tour called "Homes for the Holidays" held in December every other year.

The league donates all the proceeds from each home tour to one nonprofit. A year before last December's tour it chose Bring Me A Book as a way to improve literacy resources for children and families in underserved communities in the county. Previous donations have gone to Downtown College Prep, Montalvo Arts Center and Services for Brain Injury, among others.

Dianne Calvi, president of Bring Me A Book, submitted the funding proposal to the league two years ago.

"All the money we're receiving is going toward the purchase of these libraries and First Teachers Workshops. It all goes to a specific purpose," Calvi said.

Most schools get one or two libraries, or one class level receives them.

At Burbank, Calvi said, "Rather than placing a couple of libraries and impacting those classrooms, we decided to place a library with each kindergarten, first- and second-grade class.

"We're trying to make an impact with the work that we do. They don't already have a lot of books at Burbank. They had small libraries and old, tattered paperback books."

Calvi said, "A lot of research shows that children with a well-stocked school library are 50 percent more likely to read in class."

After visiting Burbank, Calvi says she was "amazed.

"When you see that kind of commitment on the part of the administration, it's inspiring. It shows you this is a school where learning is taking place. The administration is taking education seriously, and the kids are taking it seriously."

Following the ribbon cutting, Calvi and Nancy Ducos, foundation project manager, illustrated how the libraries will be used in classrooms by reading the book Mañana Iguana to the children and league members.

The book is a bilingual read, with English intermixed with Spanish words for days of the weeks and character names. For example, Iguana's friends are Conejo (rabbit), Culebra (snake) and Tortuga (tortoise).

Both children and adults sat in rapt attention as they listened to the tale of the hardworking Iguana and her three lazy friends who do nothing to help her prepare for her fiesta.

When she tells them they are not welcome at the party because they refused to help her with the invitations, decorating or food preparation, they realize they have disappointed Iguana and have not been good friends.

The trio redeem themselves by cleaning up after the exhausted Iguana goes to sleep.

When she wakes up, a pleased Iguana invites her friends to share in the leftover food, and they have a second party.

The happy ending and its moral brought applause.

As the children took their new libraries back to their classrooms, league members were invited to come along with them.

Before they left, the children showed they were not just on the receiving end on this special day.

Each guest at the ribbon cutting was given an envelope that included a reproduction photo of the Burbank student body in 1907, a commemorative card thanking the foundation and the league and a one-of-a-kind crayon drawing created and signed by one of the students benefiting from the new books.

For additional information on Luther Burbank School District, visit www.lbsd.k12.ca.us, and on Bring Me A Book Foundation, visit www.bringmeabook.org.