Book Nerds in the Making

As many of you know I’m a book nerd of the first degree. What many don’t know is that I wrote a children’s story about the boys at Emmanuel Center and submitted it to the Canadian Writer’s Union Writing for Children’s Contest. The story is about two Kenyan brothers who are both in desperate need of a home, which they find at a special center for street children. This little story was selected from 925 submissions as one of 12 finalists (though it wasn’t the over all winner). The prize for being a finalist is that your story is sent to three publishing houses – so now I’m praying that my story gets published so that children all over the world (or at least Canada) can read about Emmanuel Center.

Now on to other story books – last week we got a shipment from Afretech worth it’s wait in gold - 50 boxes of books! Afretech is a registered charity that supports education programs in Africa. Afretech not only makes it possible for North Americans to donate to Emmanuel Center, it has also sent computers in the past, and has now equipped the center with a full library.
The books are ideal for the Emmanuel students. There are atlases and dictionaries, which our teachers drooled over. We filled shelves with young adult novels and reference books. The English and Math text books, including teacher’s resource guides, will greatly improved the tuition and in house education at the center.
As I unpacked the boxes, crudely organizing the books by fiction, non-fiction, reference, or text book, (we need a librarian volunteer to catalogue them) the boys gathered around with eyes wide. I doubt they had ever seen so many books before. Their schools are completely devoid of book shelves, and a class of 70 students often shares less than five text books.
So it isn’t surprising that the students honour books as prized possessions to be kept somewhere safe, but not necessarily read. In fact I had to argue with staff and some boys at the center to be able to put the books out on shelves were they could be accessed and read – they wanted to lock them in a cupboard were they would be safe. Over the last few days some boys have taken books to school, to show off, but few have read any. There simply isn’t that culture here of picking up a book and reading it. However, I expect that to change. School holidays start this week and our teachers and volunteers will be sure to use the library to engage the students. If all goes well by the end of the month all the Emmanuel students will be book nerds just like me!