Kevin English earns Book Lover award of 500-book class library

Kevin English of Belleville, a third-year teacher from Wayne Memorial High School, was among ten teachers nationwide who each was awarded a 500-book classroom library by the Book Love Foundation.
English also is a member of the Van Buren Public Schools Board of Education.
The Book Love Foundation announced this summer the winners from high school and middle school English teachers in seven different states.
Besides English, nine other libraries were granted to: Terri Burg of Grass Lake, Kelcey Grogan of Detroit, and Serena Kessler of Romulus; Melissa Cournia from North Dakota; Diane Hamilton of Arizona; Rebekah Hess of Virginia; Courtney Johnson of Ohio; Jennifer Kelly of New Jersey; and Ben Wilkinson of Tennessee.
“Each of these teachers will receive a 500-book library of titles that have been carefully chosen to engage adolescent readers,” said Penny Kittle, President and founder of the Book Love Foundation.
“The Book Love Foundation chooses 400 of the books, paying special attention to include a wide range of genres and reading levels that are of high interest to student readers,” said Kittle.
“The remaining 100 books can be chosen by the grant winner and his or her students from our curated list of middle school and high school titles.
“The mission of the Book Love Foundation is to help secondary level teachers develop a life-long love of reading in their students by providing libraries of highly engaging independent reading books to use in their teaching.
“Research has repeatedly shown that students who read independently and extensively improve their vocabulary and ability to understand complex texts, and are better prepared for the rigors of post-secondary education,” said Kittle.
Kittle has 30 years of experience in teaching, and has written seven books on the teaching of reading and writing with her publisher, Heinemann. She spends a portion of her year consulting domestically and internationally with schools seeking to improve reading and writing instruction.
“Each of our grant winners has already demonstrated a commitment to developing students’ independent reading lives. Most of our grant winners teach in high poverty areas, and all of our grant winners have spent their own money to purchase books to build their libraries; one even traded her children’s old clothes to get books for her classroom library,” reported Kittle.
The Book Love Foundation received 136 grant applications in 2014 from across the United States. In addition to granting the ten classroom libraries listed above, the Foundation awarded five grants of $500 each to be used to augment the classroom libraries already started by this year’s finalists:
“The Book Love Foundation is grateful for the on-going support of Booksource and Heinemann Publishing, two of our primary benefactors. Each company donated a full library in each of our first two years. In addition, Booksource provides deeply discounted prices to the Foundation, allowing us to stretch our donations as far as possible when choosing books for our libraries,” stated Kittle.
For more information or to make a tax-deductible donation, visit booklovefoundation.org .