Parkland Library is proud to have Billie Mitchell, director of Parkland's Adult Re-entry Center, grace our 2012 READ poster. The poster is on display in the library--come check it out!Billie was honored at a reception in the libary on April 12. She spoke movingly about the importance of reading in her life. Here's the text of her speech:
"I'd like to thank Anna Maria and the Library staff for selecting me for this wonderful honor, and Jennifer Davis and the Marketing staff for this beautiful poster. I'm thrilled that an activity I've loved my life long brought me to this honor. Everyone here knows what a wonderful resource the Parkland Library is to our students, faculty, staff, and our community. A community without a library is a poor community indeed. I also want to recognize those here who work in literacy, because there are still people who have literacy issues.
Those of us who love to read have cherished memories about the activity of reading, and I'd like to share a few of mine. First was that I started out as a slow reader. When I was in first grade, the teacher separated the class into different levels of readers--all named after some kind of bird. I was put in the slowest reading group (the name of which I can't remember), but I wanted so badly to be a 'Bluebird' because they were the highest group. A wonderful memory is sitting with my mother as we practiced my reading together so that I could advance. Then when I was a teen, and the house had to be dark and quiet at night so that parents could work the next day, I discovered that I could read by the street light that shone through my bedroom window. Finally, stored away in my keepsakes is the first book my nephew ever read to me. I can remember how wonderful it felt, sitting with him as he read this little book out loud to me.
I wanted to close with an author's quote, and I have selected one from Betty Smith who wrote "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn": "The world was hers for the reading." How wonderful to bring other worlds and cultures to us, and experience someone else's life and joy through reading."
THANKS BILLIE for sharing your love of reading with us all.
I was in the "Robins" group which was the high-level in my first grade class. Reading didn't begin until first grade, and we used the Dick and Jane basal readers.
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