foster in them a love of reading

Every year at the beginning of February the Learning Lab hosts a Lunch For Literacy.  It is one of my favorite fund raising events. And, every year since I have been attending, I donate an auction basket of books aimed at Middle Grade readers. I always have a great time putting the basket together: considering different reading levels, story lines, and themes. I have this ideal dream scenario where a Middle Grade reader will get my basket of books and say, "I never considered myself a reader until I read these books. Reading is so much fun!" (a girl can dream).

I am currently reading, My Own Words by Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and it has inspired my choices for this year's book basket. RBG is perhaps an unlikely rock star as an 83 year-old US Supreme Court Justice; but if you have a child and you want them to grow up to be a confident trail-blazer, you need look no further than Ruth Bader Ginsburg as a role model. In her book, My Own Words, RBG suggests that if parents want their children to mature into confident, fierce, high-achieving citizens, they should foster in them a love of reading. 

So, here's my list of books for this year's basket. I hope they inspire bravery, confidence, clever rebellion, smart resistance, empathy, independence, grit, innovation, and most importantly a love of reading.

• I Dissent: Ruth Bader Ginsburg Makes Her Mark by Debbie Levy
• Ada Lovelace, Poet of Science: The First Computer Programmer by Diane Stanley
• The Warden's Daughter by Jerry Spinelli
• Some Kind of Happiness by Claire Legrand
• Paper Wishes by Lois Sepahban
• Radiant Child: The Story of Young Artist Jean-Michel Basquiat by Javaka Steptoe
• March: book one, two, and three by John Lewis
• Eleven by Tom Rogers
• The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill
• As Brave As You by Jason Reynolds
• Drowned City by Don Brown
• PAX by Sara Pennypacker
• All Rise for the Honorable Perry T. Cook by Leslie Connor
• American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang
• Ghost by Jason Reynolds
• When Friendship Followed Me Home by Paul Griffin