“Thanks to the Chicago Public Library and an outpouring of public support, Gabriel Levinson and his ‘Book Bike‘ win an unexpected battle with City Hall,” according to this post on the Tonic website.

For those of you who don’t know, the Book Bike is a large tricycle that’s been outfitted with a plywood box that contains a world of books. Levinson pedals it weekly through the streets and parks of Chicago, expounding his love of reading, and offering books to anyone who cares to take one. For free. ‘“Hopefully, it’s just a fun discovery for people,”’ Gabriel Levinson tells Tonic

Seems like a benign enough practice, no? Actually, the kind of self-less, philanthropic activity to be applauded, right? Wrong. As Tonic tells it, one day:

A fellow bicyclist approached Gabriel in one of the city’s parks, and his initial excitement at having a nibble of interest on a slow day soon transformed into surprise and then frustration and anger.

The bicyclist turned out to be a parks department employee who informed Levinson that unless and until he has a permit on hand, he had to remove himself and the Book Bike from park property. The paperwork required would be substantial, and it would be ongoing: Chicagoist reported that in addition to the overall permit, he would need to apply separately for each intended outing. And without 501(c)(3) status, he would not be eligible for fee reductions or waivers, which would likely approach $2,000 in total.

Levinson went home and blogged his frustrations. As he told Tonic, ‘“My blog has about ten regular readers, nine of whom are friends that I’ve browbeaten into reading it.”’

Nonetheless the story spread beyond his friends. According to Tonic, “Local media outlet Chicagoist ran the story, and this was soon followed by national media when MSNBC picked up and ran with it. Suddenly awash in interest, moral support and fresh donations from not only those in the Chicago community, but from around the world within mere days, Levinson was surprised how resonant his idea and passion had become with so many.”

“’I was simply overwhelmed by what has come back from this. I had no idea that there was this sort of support.’” Levinson said.

Soon, the Book Bikes plight came to the attention of the real force behind getting things done in Chicago, the fixer every pol needs, the Public Library. Yes, the library took Levinson’s venture under it’s protective wing. They offered to “deputize” the Book Bike as an official partner.

Levinson’s now got a simple letter, on letterhead, from the library, saying it’s all kosher. No fees, no fines. So, next time some free-lance park ranger gives him a hard time he just flashes his letter.

Don’t mess with the Chicago Public Library.

Librarian Jon Allinder wrote in to MobyLives about one of the reports in our Anatomy of a Marketing Campaign series, and mentioned in his letter that he’d used Melville House’s Every Man Dies Alone by Hans Fallada in a campaign he was conducting himself called “Books for Non-Readers.” We asked him to explain, which he was kind enough to do in this guest column ….

Sustained pleasure reading is a vitally important and wholesome activity. As a pleasure reader it isn’t necessary for studies to demonstrate the profoundly positive impact reading has on your mind and body—you feel this impact daily. Reading is an interesting phenomenon, when taken on its own, because it is at the same time intensely personal and enjoyably communal. We bury ourselves within a book, and then we run out and share what we’ve read with others.It is the act of sharing that binds us to a community of books and readers, and we grow intensely in our tastes and understanding as a participant in this community.

So what about the non-readers? Do we talk about books with non-readers? They don’t read, and you’re only going to come off pretentious or simply boring. This is dangerous thinking. I’ll argue that these individuals need to hear about books more than anyone else, and if you’re a fervent reader I’ll guarantee you’ve got a stock of wonderful books to talk about with them, books that the non-reader can connect with in meaningful ways. Welcome to my Books for Non-Readers program.

Books for Non-Readers is all about sharing your love of reading with those individuals who would classify themselves as non-readers. This isn’t a “here’s an easy book” program, this is about putting quality books into the hands of people who would otherwise not think to reach for them. I’m talking about turning non-readers into readers.

The question of what books will you recommend is an important one—you’ve got to choose carefully, otherwise you run the risk of further cementing a non-reading attitude. Below is my brief list of “musts,” that I’ve slowly developed over the past year or so of thinking about how to connect with non-readers.

The “Musts”:

• The book must be accessible: the language and style of the book cannot be overly difficult. I’m not saying the book has to be simple, just written in a plain style, employing straightforward language.
• The book has to grab you: some wonderful books only become wonderful after you drag yourself through the first twenty to fifty pages, and a non-reader isn’t going to suffer that kind of commitment. The non-reader needs something that comes out and grabs them right way, because if the book doesn’t start strong it’s not going to last.
• Pacing is important: once the book grabs you it has to keep hold and move at a nice pace, otherwise it runs the risk of becoming stale in the eyes of a non-reader.
• Shorter books are good: again, I’m not saying simple books, but if a book’s pagination runs well above 500 the non-reader may be inherently turned off by the shear heft of the book. This stipulation cuts both ways, because if the book works in the other respects the fact that it’s a bit longer could actually increase the satisfaction of a new reader. Think how good it feels to finish a huge book.
• One book must lead to another book: there isn’t any sense in starting a fire if you can’t feed it, right? Being able to say “if you liked that you’ll want to check out this,” or “there are tons of other books written on this topic, such as” will help ensure that your new reader can find additional titles either on their own or at someone’s recommendation.
• Have a list of books: be ready with several recommendations, depending on the non-readers perceived tastes or interests. There isn’t one go-to book for every recommendation (thought there are some that come close, in my opinion), so be ready to throw a few titles out there, and be able to talk about them to explain why the non-reader might enjoy this or that book.

I firmly believe that it is our responsibility as readers to share this love (nay, life) with others, and if you stop and think about it I’m sure you know a person and a book that would be perfect for each other. Make that match happen.

Having been at the book recommendation game for only a short time, I’d love to hear about any recommendations that others can think of for non-readers, as well as any thoughts on the considerations behind what kinds of books to recommend.

Some of the top titles from my list are:

• Every Man Dies Alone, by Hans Fallada
• O, Pioneers, by Willa Cather
• Stones from the River, by Ursula Hegi
• No Country for Old Men, Cormac McCarthy
• Post Office, Charles Bukowski
• The Metamorphosis, by Franz Kafka
• You Can’t Win, by Jack Black

What books would you include, and why? Comments welcome.

“Can fart jokes save the reading souls of boys?” asks an Associated Press wire story. Apparently, we had best hope so:

Boys have lagged behind girls in reading achievement for more than 20 years, but the gender gap now exists in nearly every state and has widened to mammoth proportions — as much as 10 percentage points in some, according to the Center on Education Policy.

“It certainly should set off alarm bells,” said the center’s director, Jack Jennings. “It’s a significant separation.”

….Parents of reluctant readers complain that boys are forced to stick to stuffy required school lists that exclude nonfiction or silly subjects, or have teachers who cater to higher achievers and girls. They’re hoping books that exploit boys’ love of bodily functions and gross-out humor can close the gap.

Driven by their desperation to attract young male readers attention, teachers, librarians and publishers are responding with a “steady stream of sports and historical nonfiction, potty humor, bloodthirsty vampires and action-packed graphic novels, fantasy and sleuthing,” according to the AP. “Butts, farts. Whatever, said Amelia Yunker, a children’s librarian in Farmington Hills, Mich. She hosted a grossology party with slime and an armpit noise demonstration. ‘Just get ‘em reading. Worry about what they’re reading later.’”

As part of the enticement to read, some are adding on-line prizes, special features, and even video. Patrick Carman’s upper-grade books, the Skeleton Creek series from Scholastic, “use password-protected websites to alternate book text and quick fixes of shaky, hand-held video. To follow the story, reading and watching online are both required. ‘We’re meeting them halfway,’ Carman said. ‘It’s the idea that these books understand where they’re at.’”

And then there is the wildly successful, Sweet Farts written for younger kids by Ray Sabini, fourth grade teacher from Miller Place, New York. “‘Reaching those reluctant boys, it’s a challenge I take very, very seriously and this is what they think is funny,’” Sabini told the AP. “‘There’s also history in there. There’s science in there, the problem of bullying, but it’s the humor that gets their attention.’”

Jon Scieszka, former teacher and Library of Congress literary ambassador for young people’s lit, has been writing kid books for 20 years, and he is a bit more hopeful about the range of what boys will read. “‘Boys will read a wide variety of stuff, not just gross-out humor, but stuff they enjoy in large part is stuff that’s not seen as legitimate reading in some schools, so they’re already feeling they’re not part of the system,’” he told the AP.

There is, of course, a long and hollowed tradition of the gross-out in literature. So these young readers can look forward to some sophisticated adult fare. Rabelais anyone?

The National Endowment for the Arts has slashed the budget for the popular Big Read program, according to a report in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch by Jane Henderson. She notes that the agency has announced its most recent grants will total only $1 million, dispersed to 75 nonprofit groups. Last year, the NEA handed out almost four times that much to many more institutions — $3.7 million to 267 libraries, schools, and other nonprofits. The year before, it was $4.4 million spread over 334 grants.

The Big Read — run from its inception until last January by then-Director of Literature (and Melville House author and translator) David Kipen (see the earlier report) — is, as Henderson explains, “a program to encourage communities to read, discuss and celebrate a single book.”

As Henderson notes, the program had a stirring beginning, when …

… then-NEA Chairman Dana Gioia, a published poet, explained the impetus for starting the Big Read: “The NEA’s landmark 2004 study, Reading at Risk, showed that literary reading in the U.S. is in steep decline. No single program can entirely reverse this trend. But if cities nationally unite to adopt the Big Read, our community-wide reading program, together we can restore reading to its essential place in American culture. Call me naïve, but I can actually envision an America in which average people talk about ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ and ‘The Great Gatsby’ with the same enthusiasm as they bring to ‘Lost’ or ‘Desperate Housewives.’”

Now, “NEA spokeswoman Liz Stark said the program has been scaled back because it is now established and the NEA wants to ‘fund it at a sustainable level,” Henderson reports, although apparently the NEA’s idea of how the program “sustains” itself is that “other groups are expected to take over funding and planning.”

Now that's going to be a smart kid...

A huge new study just out — “Family scholarly culture and educational success: Books and schooling in 27 nations” — published in the journal Research in Social Stratification and Mobility, says just having books in the home is as important in determining a child’s educational success as the parents’ education level, according to this report in the Nevada News by Claudene Wharton.

Reports Wharton:

Whether rich or poor, residents of the United States or China, illiterate or college graduates, parents who have books in the home increase the level of education their children will attain, according to a 20-year study led by Mariah Evans, University of Nevada, Reno associate professor of sociology and resource economics.

For years, educators have thought the strongest predictor of attaining high levels of education was having parents who were highly educated. But, strikingly, this massive study showed that the difference between being raised in a bookless home compared to being raised in a home with a 500-book library has as great an effect on the level of education a child will attain as having parents who are barely literate (3 years of education) compared to having parents who have a university education (15 or 16 years of education). Both factors, having a 500-book library or having university-educated parents, propel a child 3.2 years further in education, on average.

Evans is particularly interested in the benefit for children of lesser-educated parents. “The results of this study indicate that getting some books into their homes is an inexpensive way that we can help these children succeed,” she says. “Even a little bit goes a long way.”

The study found that, “Having as few as 20 books in the home still has a significant impact on propelling a child to a higher level of education, and the more books you add, the greater the benefit.”

Evans tells the News, “You get a lot of ‘bang for your book’. It’s quite a good return-on-investment in a time of scarce resources.”

According to the News report:

The study by Evans and her colleagues at Nevada, UCLA and Australian National University is one of the largest and most comprehensive studies ever conducted on what influences the level of education a child will attain.

The researchers were struck by the strong effect having books in the home had on children’s educational attainment even above and beyond such factors as education level of the parents, the country’s GDP, the father’s occupation or the political system of the country.

Having books in the home is twice as important as the father’s education level, and more important than whether a child was reared in China or the United States. Surprisingly, the difference in educational attainment for children born in the United States and children born in China was just 2 years, less than two-thirds the effect that having 500 or more books in the home had on children (3.2 years).

A poster from the Russian Revolution, reading "From Darkness to Light, from Battles to Books"

The Moscow Writers Union and the Moscow city government have joined forces to launch a street campaign in the Russian capital to promote reading, according to a RIA Novosti wire story.

“As part of this campaign, the Moscow Writers Union placed 100 thematic billboards saying ‘Read books’ on city streets,” says a spokesman for the Writers Union, Alexander Gerasimov. In a plan to target young people especially, the signs will also broadcast slogans such as “Discover new things!”, “Be guided by knowledge” and “Fill in the gaps!”, Gerasimov says.

“Russians read newspapers and news on the Internet, but apparently have an apathy toward reading serious literature, thick books written not only by contemporaries but by classic writers as well. Such indifference can lead to erosion of entire cultural layers, to depletion of knowledge about literature, to the loss of national self-identification.”

The Friday announcement seems inspired by a recent story that got a lot of pick up in Russia:

President Dmitry Medvedev admitted two weeks ago that his son found books less interesting than the Internet, recounting how they found a version of Mikhail Lermontov’s classic novel A Hero of Our Time on the web.

“We searched for A Hero of Our Time on the Internet, a well-known book, a classic,” Medvedev told a meeting of the state science and culture councils on April 22. “We found it, no problem, downloaded it, and then the young man got the desire to have a look. But the book lies there, untouched.”

Meanwhile Gerasimov says the campaign will expand to other parts of the country starting in June. “We can boldly speak of a quick transformation of the Moscow information campaign into a Russia-wide one,” he says.

Tain Public Library, Scotland

Here’s an interesting statistic from our friends across the pond. According to this report in the Daily Telegraph, “The Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA) revealed that 310.8 million books were borrowed from libraries across the country in 2008/09.The figure represents a 1 per cent increase compared with the previous 12-month period, the first rise in book borrowing in 10 years.”

And who is responsible for this rise in library use? Children. Yes, figures also showed “that the number of children’s books borrowed from libraries across the UK increased 5 per cent last year, with 95.4 million children’s books being taken out compared to the 90.6 million in the previous 12-month period,” according to the Telegraph.

Libraries are delighted with the statistics and are touting their aggressive outreach programs as the cause. Miranda McKearney, director of the charity the Reading Agency, told the Telegraph, “libraries had made a huge effort to make reading more inclusive for all. They now offer reading groups, challenges, author events, baby rhyme times and clever promotions to guide book choice.”

The libraries’ efforts seem to be paying off. “‘The tanker is turning around,” McKearney said, ” These statistics tell an important story about the public’s response to the new way libraries are promoting reading and offering digital access. Book borrowing has risen for the first time in a decade and library web visits are up almost 50 per cent.”

Happy to hear their tanker is turning around. Hope ours isn’t sinking ….

A major world-changing event rocked the literary world over the weekend. The iPad? Are you kidding? They changed the rules of Scrabble!

Proper nouns are now allowed, according to a BBC News wire report: The Mattel company announced “Place names, people’s names and company names or brands will now count.” It’s the first rule change in the history of the game since its invention in 1938.

Why, you ask yourself? Why, why, why? “Mattel, which brings out a new version of the game containing amended rules in July, hopes the change will encourage younger people to play.” They’re being wishy washy about it, though: “Mattel said there would be no hard and fast rule over whether a proper noun was correct or not.”

But back to why, why, why? “A spokeswoman for the company said the use of proper nouns would ‘add a new dimension’ to Scrabble and ‘introduce an element of popular culture into the game’.” The spokesperson also indicated there will be other rule changes in the new edition. But the company “will continue to sell a board with the original rules” for what it no doubt considers hard asses, a two word phrase which may or may not be eligible under the new rules.

Two other words: New Coke.

Who says reading is not a competitive sport? Au contraire, mes amis. According to a report in the Buffalo Bulletin of Buffalo, Wyoming, a contest featuring seven local teams and 22 participants waged the first ever Battle of the Books, with team “Page Turners” emerging victorious.

With grants from the Johnson County Recreation Board, the YMCA and Meadowlark Elementary School, a reading competition for interested third-grade students was launched. Frank Pratt, who directed the event, explained the rules to the Bulletin: “Students began reading a list of 14 books in the middle of December and met once a week to share information about the books they read with their teammates. Each of the seven teams had different strategies.”

According to the Bulletin, “Last week the months of practice paid off when the semifinals and finals were held before parents and friends of the student at Meadowlark Elementary School. The third-grade students were quizzed on different aspects of each book including main characters, titles, and genres.”

According to Pratt, “The semifinal battle saw a close battle with the Bubble Blowers, A++ Readers, and 3 Bookworms being eliminated. The Page Knights, Book Busters, Page Turners, and Word Wizards moved on to the finals. In an incredibly close final battle the Page Turners took the championship by a single question while the other three teams tied for second with identical scores.”

No injuries were reported, but it was rumored that one third grader said his head hurt.

Based on a successful reading incentive program developed by the Alaska Association of School Librarians, the Battle of the Books was a hit in the Buffalo schools. So much so that the Wyoming teams might find themselves, with the help of video conferencing, competing with their Alaskan counterparts.

Bibi van der Zee has a problem: She thinks perhaps she reads too much. As she puts it in a Guardian essay:

…. if you are a compulsive reader like me, who reads walking down the road, and while she’s making her children’s dinner, and on the loo and in the bath and in bed and on the bus, and at every other possible second of the day, and if what you’re reading is mostly . . . well . . . pulp, then sometimes you end up feeling as if books are eating you up instead of the other way round. Sure, there’s a smattering of literature and high art-type stuff in there, but mostly it is whatever I have fished off the shelf at my nearest Oxfam that morning – detective stories, romances, horror, sci fi . . . any kind of fiction that I can gulp down in large enough, quick enough bites.

So, she decides to try something radical: Giving up reading for a week.

It doesn’t work so well:

By Thursday, my early glow has worn off …. I am incredibly tetchy and snappy; more than usual? Impossible to know (everyone’s too scared to tell me), but Friday is the same and even a little worse and I can’t find any way to relax, to switch off and get away from the things that you list in your head at 11.30pm at night. … I slump down on to the sofa for a half hour that would usually involve a novel, a cuppa, and maybe a biscuit. Instead, after staring at the wall for a bit, I fetch my laptop and do some more work. Life feels deeply, wintrily joyless. It feels wall-to-wall grey.

Books, I realise, have been one of my longest, truest friends. When I’m anxious, sad, angry, in need of comfort, a book is often the first place I will go …. And now I have just cast them aside, as if all my flaws are their fault, and not the other way round.

The day that the ban is lifted, I wait until the children have gone to bed, and then pick up the novel I was halfway through when the axe fell, pour a glass of wine and settle down with it, a bit worried that somehow (like the first puff of a fag when you’ve given up smoking for a while) it won’t be as good as before, that somehow I will have spoilt it.

But there’s no need to worry. Immediately, it is as if the wardrobe doors to Narnia have been thrown open again and thousands of other technicolour lives have tumbled straight back out from that eighth dimension inside my head. Day-to-day life just fades out, I stop worrying, stop twitching and just forget who or where I am for a gorgeous hour. I have still not got around to hanging those pictures in the bathroom. But reader, I am never giving up books again.