The variety of approaches chosen by the artist keeps me in touch with all that has happened and is happening in the world of art. My book shelves are no longer the orange crates I put together as a child. I keep building or buying bookshelves to hold the collection. I am proud of my own home library. All hands go up.
Fewer hands go up.
I then ask that they promise to keep a jar on hand into which goes the extra coins- for books. When enough coins are saved a book is added to their own home library. I suggest that sometimes they remember to choose a book about their people. Ashley Bryan was born in New York City and now lives on a small island off the coast of Maine, where he writes and illustrates books most of the year. His book Beat the Story Drum, Pum-Pum, received the Coretta Scott King Award for Illustration, and Lion and the Ostrich Chicks was a Coretta Scott King Honor Book.