Posts Tagged ‘book end babes’

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-07-31

July 31st, 2010

Powered by Twitter Tools

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-07-24

July 24th, 2010

Powered by Twitter Tools

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-07-17

July 17th, 2010

Powered by Twitter Tools

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-07-10

July 10th, 2010

Powered by Twitter Tools

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-07-03

July 3rd, 2010

Powered by Twitter Tools

THRILLER THURSDAY

July 1st, 2010

THE HORROR OF READING IN AMERICA

 It is a staggering and tragic reality but, illiteracy is alive and well and living right here in America. This is, to me, scarier than ANY horror book I could ever recommend to you. I have decided for my Thriller Thursday post to toss out some well researched statistics in the hopes of scaring the pants off of you as readers and parents. PLEASE, BE ALARMED…

85 percent of all juveniles who interface with the juvenile court system are functionally illiterate.

Illiteracy and crime are closely related. The Department of Justice states, “The link between academic failure and delinquency, violence, and crime is welded to reading failure.” Over 70% of inmates in America’s prisons cannot read above a fourth grade level.

Penal institution records show that inmates have a 16% chance of returning to prison if they receive literacy help, as opposed to 70% who receive no help.

A long-awaited federal study finds that an estimated 32 million adults in the USA — about one in seven — are saddled with such low literacy skills that it would be tough for them to read anything more challenging than a children’s picture book or to understand a medication’s side effects listed on a pill bottle.

And this one was more disturbing than them all…According to UNICEF, “Nearly a billion people will enter the 21st century unable to read a book or sign their names and two thirds of them are women.”

Did you know that some states even gauge the amount of bed space they will need for their prisons based on the literacy levels of their 4th graders?  Are you horrified? Good. You should be. Now, I want to give you a few more statistics to lighten the mood just a bit.

There are 19 listed chapters of  Book End Babes book clubs on this site.

There are 127+ members of those book clubs listed who read in upwards of 4+ books per month. If we do the math, on average, Book End Babes read approximately 508 books per year.

 We all can make an impact not only in our lives but in the lives of people we are close to and people in our community. It started with Malena and Book End Babes but has potential to be so much more. It could be a reading revolution. All we have to do is continue to read with and to our children and introduce others to the joy of reading as well. We can volunteer for reading programs in our cities or do something as simple as reading to children at your local public library, schools or our children at home. We have the power to unleash a plaque of epic proportions on the U.S. and even the world, it all starts with a book. We CAN change the world…one book, one child, one adult at a time.

CAMPFIRE BEACH READS

My Campfire Beach read for this week is Craig Robertson’s  RANDOM This is a delicious thriller set in Scotland and one I gave a 5-spider rating to on the WebbWeaver review site. Enjoy!

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-06-26

June 26th, 2010

Powered by Twitter Tools

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-06-19

June 19th, 2010

Powered by Twitter Tools

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-06-12

June 12th, 2010

Powered by Twitter Tools

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-06-05

June 5th, 2010

Powered by Twitter Tools