Books take readers into past
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Using information from the books she read, 9-year-old Mia Vessell on Wednesday imagined herself wearing pink ballet slippers in a modern dance recital and visiting New York at the turn of the century to walk in the shoes of a poor immigrant girl.
Vessell and 49 other campers ages 6 to 15 are spending six weeks, through July 16, at Freedom School at Southern University Laboratory School to hone their reading and comprehension skills, and develop skits and activities to go along with their books.
“Reading makes me feel like I am inside of the book,” said Vessell, of Baton Rouge.
The program follows the Children’s Defense Fund’s model for academic enrichment and social and civic engagement. Classes are led by college-age young adults, several of whom are classroom teachers and it is funded through the state Department of Social Services, said Josie Williams, program director.
During the integrated reading curriculum, Vessell’s reading group studied, “When Jessie Came Across the Sea,” a story about a 13-year-old poor immigrant girl who leaves her village in Eastern Europe to settle in America where she is promised an opportunity to work.
Students drew pictures, created skits, offered advice to the fictitious character and developed travel brochures to help make the immigrant girl’s move to New York a little easier.
Anthony Jack, 9, of Baton Rouge, was intrigued when he learned the book’s character expected to find streets of gold in America.
“The streets aren’t paved with gold. If they want gold they needed to go to California in 1849,” where prospectors searched for gold, Jack said.
Following integrated reading, students were allowed to read in the school’s library.
Vessell read her favorite tales from “Sugar Plum Ballerinas.”
“I don’t take ballet but I want to,” she said.
Many of the available books in the library range from black history to books about people of different cultures and ethnicities, historical fiction and other books, Williams said.
Briyanna Talton, 9, of Baton Rouge, visits bookstores and libraries more.
“I used to read slowly and now I read faster,” she said. “When I read, I feel like I’m watching TV. But it’s like TV in your head.”
Carrington Hall, 9, of Baton Rouge, reads comedy and mystery books.
“It makes me happy and emotional and it’s funny,” Hall said.
High school-age students studied a more weighty book, “Forged by Fire,” a fiction book covering the themes of abandonment, alcoholism, sexual abuse, incest, poverty, depression and death.
Five students staged a mock trial to play out a scene from the book in which a stepfather is accused of abusing his stepdaughter.
“It helps us understand the book more when we act and talk about it,” said Paige Smith, 15, of Baton Rouge, who portrayed the child victim.
They also read books on incidents that sparked the civil rights movement including “Getting Away with Murder: The Emmett Till Case.”
“These books help your vocabulary expand and it gives you an idea of what can happen in the real world,” said Tauris Moton, 15, of Baton Rouge.
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