BUTTE — The books at the West Elementary library were literally flying off the shelves as students participated in the book fair where they each received three free books. It’s all a part of getting these students to start reading early.
The book fair was part of The Scripps Howard Foundation’s "If You Give a Child a Book..." campaign that included a $5,000 donation from Leskovar Honda in Butte.
“Several of them have come in today and said it is almost like Christmas,” said West Elementary Principal Pat Kissell.
Teachers found that allowing children to choose their books is the best way to encourage them to read.
“They’re able to choose the books they want to read instead of choosing for them; it just opens up so many more doors,” said West Elementary Educator Sarah Stepan.
The students have many great reasons to want to read.
“I read mama’s books, because she’s really smart and because she reads those books and I want to be just like my mama,” said student Thea Connell.
Student Samuel Todorovich said, “I like it, it helps your brain learn a lot of stuff.”
And Knox Markovich said, “I had like three books that were like 213 pages and I’ve already read all of them in like a month.”
One teacher said he has a student that he can never get to read, but this book fair has already made a difference.
“It’s been really hard to get him to read all year and today in my class, when we were in the library in the lab, he was reading for the whole 45 minutes and it was just really cool to see,” said Casey Dennehy.
This book fair has over 1,500 books of all types—even a book on dinosaurs MTN's John Emeigh wanted to keep for himself.
“No, these are for kids!” said a student.
“It’s like a contagious where they enjoy the books and then one leads to another and another and they love learning, and we couldn’t be more appreciative and more thankful for all of our sponsors,” said Kissell.
