Upbeat music) - Hello and welcome to "The Journal", I'm Steve Kendall.

1BookBG returns to the Bowling Green community again this year.

And we're joined this evening for "Journal" by Stacey Higgins from BG City Schools.

Michelle Rogers from St. Aloysius Schools, and Maria Simon from the Wood County District Public Library.

I wanna thank you all for being here today.

Stacey, talk a little about 1BookBG, because you were on last year, we had an author here, but talk a little about the background, the history, and how it came about, and some of your partners as well.

- Sure, 1BookBG got started about 10 years ago.

It was the brainchild of a few teachers at Kenwood Elementary wanting to bring our community together.

And over the years, the program has evolved greatly.

We now include all of our non-public schools, so it is truly one community, one book.

This year, however, instead of just one book, we actually have one author we're featuring, and several books by him.

- Yeah, and we can talk about the series, but I was looking online, is it Jerry, is it Pollotta?

Pelota, Pallotta.

- [Stacey] Yes.

- And it's a whole series of books calls "Who Would Win?"

He also has an alphabet series too, which is kind of interesting that as well.

talk a little bit, so for 10 years, so when you go to select the author, how do you go about doing that?

What group gets together and says, "Oh, let's do this," or, "This looks like the right person, this looks like the right title," et cetera.

- [Stacey] I think Michelle would do a great job explaining that for you.

- Oh, okay, yeah, sure.

Yeah, Michelle.

- Oh, yeah, of course.

Well, typically, the committee selects a book.

However, this year, Maria has Jerry coming for an author visit and she said, "What if we use his book, and then we tie it in with the author visit?"

And we thought that was a great idea.

- [Steve] Sure.

- And because he has so many books available in the "Who Would Win?"

series, the committee selected two books per grade level.

And so each grade level voted between those two books.

- [Steve] Oh, okay.

- So that way all of the, for example, my first graders are reading the same book, the "Who Would Win Polar Bear or Grizzly Bear".

- [Steve] Okay.

- So everybody across the whole Bowling Green community of that grade reads the same book.

- [Steve] Will read that book.

- [Michelle] And it gives them ownership too, because they got to vote which book they wanted.

- [Steve] Sure.

- And then the winner is the one that was selected for that grade level.

And they're non-fiction books this year, which is new.

- [Steve] Right, mhm.

- And so it's just a really great learning experience, and it gives kids more variety, even within their families to talk with each other.

And so the committee did a great job of selecting those.

And we thank Maria for tying this in with the author visit.

- Yeah, now, when you look at these books, now they're all these different titles.

Elementary grade, so each grade selects its own book.

They vote on it.

Were you surprised by any of the selections?

Like, "Oh, we thought the first graders had go for this book versus of the two you offered 'em?"

Or did they, yeah.

What made you choose those two books for them to look at?

- I wasn't on that committee.

- [Steve] Oh, okay, all right.

- We had a committee that picked two per grade.

- [Steve] Okay.

- So were you on that, Stacey?

- Really, it was a true toss up.

And literally, we went through, he has such an extensive list, we went through the order from top to bottom to make it easier.

- Yeah, 'cause you look at some of the titles, and then we've got them laid out here.

And I know the director won't be thrilled by the concept, but for instance, it's "Halcon vs Gavalon," and there's "Hawk vs Falcon," and there's "Rhino vs Hippo".

- And that's in Spanish.

- In Spanish, yeah.

Yeah, I wish I did a terrible job of just pronouncing all of those.

But you look at some of these, and the thing that I noticed about them was they're very informative.

- [Maria] Yes.

- But they get into things that I don't think about.

Because I know the one in here talks about elephant seal versus walrus, and it talks about how different animals have different noses, or they have tusks.

And then it goes on to explain in a very clear and yet entertaining way why they develop that way, or how they use those and that sort of thing.

Because your first thought is, well, who would win?

And it's like, oh, we've got a battle going on, but that's kind of woven in a very subtle way through it.

And yet, it's an incredibly educational thing.

Now, when you looked at some of the other, what made you choose this series this year when you guys sat down to do it?

- It's very popular.

- Yeah, oh okay.

- It's very popular.

Kids love animals.

- Sure.

- And they like kind of competition.

And so it's just a really nice mashup between two animals, and then a compare and contrast kind of experience.

And because it's sort of a competition, it adds that extra element of excitement and dynamic drama.

- Yeah, sort of dynamic gives people... Yeah, exactly.

And that's what I thought was interesting too, because some of the names were, well, some of the selections were kind of interesting in terms of who we had versus who.

I mean, they had "Green Ant vs Army Ant" and things like that.

- [Maria] Right, right.

- And I just thought it was really interesting.

And yet, when you open those up, you can see where at elementary level, how well done it is in terms of getting the information across.

And yet, very, because we're talking a lot of biology here, and a lot of things like that.

I mean, "Coyote vs Dingo" was a discussion of, is that fur, is that hair kind of a thing?

That's something that even I would think about.

You saw the dogs got fur on it or whatever.

- [Maria] And kids like details.

- [Steve] Yeah, yeah.

- So, and they are sponges for new information, and yeah.

So they're just eating these books up.

And because they're fairly straightforward and succinct, just two animals, it kind of gives them the appetite for another book and another book and another book.

So they get the concept and then they want, we're really hoping that they wanna read a whole lot more.

And then maybe do some more research themselves on the polar bear, or the grizzly bear, or who else would be.

because they're not necessarily animals that would find themselves in the wild together.

- [Steve] Yeah, together, yeah.

- Yeah, he's just put them together.

- Put them together and construct it.

And I know there's also dinosaur related things as well.

- Yes.

- Which we know kids just love that kind of stuff.

- Oh yeah.

- But I just thought, yeah, when I'm looking at that, I'm thinking, look at these titles, they're really incredible.

Made me wanna read the books.

- Good, yeah.

- And I'm thinking, okay, they're not necessarily aimed at my age group, but okay.

- Well, we can all learn a lot from children's books.

- Exactly.

- Oh yes.

- Yeah, when I was just leafing through some of the examples, I'm like, "Oh my gosh, I didn't know that about that animal."

- Right, right.

- And I think that's the intriguing thing.

And I think it's, as you said too, Maria, it makes kids wanna find out more about it, and it gets them interested 'cause we're talking basically science here in a lot of ways.

And we always hear that, well, kids don't like science, they don't like math.

- Oh, they love it, they love it.

- This gets them into the science part of it in a way that makes it intriguing for them and entertaining.

Now, Michelle, when you take this into the classroom, and you're gonna do this the day that he's here, what is that like typically, how do you construct that day for your students?

When you say, "Okay, we're gonna do, here's the 1BookBG, here's how this rolls out."

So how does that work in your classroom?

- Well, the concept of 1BookBG is to try and have them read these at home with their families.

- [Steve] Okay, mhm.

- So they take them home, they read them with their families.

And typically, when the teacher gets the book, the very first day when we're giving them the book, we show them the book.

We might read a page or two of the book to just kind of pull them in, get what their appetite.

And then they take it home and read it at home.

And then to encourage them to keep reading, we have tell me Tuesday teach me Thursday questions on our announcements.

If they can write the answer to that prompt, they get to put their ticket in a raffle box and have a chance to win a prize.

- [Steve] Oh, okay.

- So we have that as an incentive for them to continue reading.

And then we also did, before we gave them the books, we did predictions with them.

And they got to predict, and we have those displayed so when the author comes, he sees their predictions hanging up.

- [Steve] Oh, wow.

- And can see what they thought before, and now how do they think afterwards.

- Yeah, not bad.

When we come back, we're gonna talk more about this, because there's a lot of things to cover here.

And I always find it interesting, when I look at these books and I look at the concept, and obviously the idea, as you just said, is to bring not just the children into this, but to bring their families and make reading a family thing again.

- [Stacey] Yes.

- So back in just a moment with the folks from 1BookBG here on "The Journal".

Back in a second.

Thank you for staying with us on "The Journal".

We're talking about 1BookBG, and we're joined by Michelle Rogers from St. Aloysius School here in Bowling Green.

Stacey Higgins from BG City Schools and Crim Elementary, I believe.

- [Stacey] Yes.

- And also Maria Simon from the Wood County District Public Library.

Stacey, talk about all of the stakeholders involved in this.

Because we've talked about the kids, touched on the families a little bit, but it's a much bigger picture than that.

- It is, and this year we have had overwhelming community support.

COVID did a number on many things in our schools, and 1BookBG was one of those.

- [Steve] Sure.

- We went to an all online offering at one point.

Then due to finances, we were restricted to one book per family rather than one book per student.

And when this opportunity was presented to us by the library with these books that we know the students just love, we really made a commitment that we wanted to return to the true mission of the program of one book per child.

And so we went to our community, and they have responded overwhelmingly.

We have received a number of corporate donations, as well as even five and $10 checks from families to help make sure that we had enough books for one for every child in our community, which has been just wonderful.

We also have a great partnership with local businesses, where we call them our mission stops.

Now, in the past, there were trivia questions that students could go around to businesses to answer.

That doesn't really work when there's so many different books being offered.

- [Steve] Sure.

- So instead, we have posters that align with, first the books that we used.

But then just this weekend, because they were so overwhelmingly popular at our businesses, we refreshed and have 14 new posters at our local community partners.

Where students simply go in and put a sticker on which animal they would pick to win.

And already, I was overwhelmed by the number of my students that came in today with new tickets.

They go into a business, they vote, they get a little ticket to bring back for these same raffle boxes.

And community donations for those raffle boxes have been wonderful as well.

Our school PTOs, as well as partners such as Call of the Canyon Cafe, to Waddington Jewelers, Tropical Smoothie.

You name a downtown or local Bowling Green business, they've had some part in this program this year.

- Now, about how many students are we talking in terms of the number, because you have booked for every student.

So what's a ballpark on that?

- We ordered over 2000 books.

- Wow, okay, so yeah, that's that's a significant.

Yeah, that's a chunk.

- Yes, yes.

- And it's interesting.

So when people walk into these businesses, they can see this, and so now they can kind of figure out, "Oh, that's what that's about."

- Yes.

- If they don't know already.

When you talk to the parents after this is over, and the families and the people that are involved, what's their responses?

Obviously you've been doing it for a number of years, you said, yeah, COVID made it dip for whatever, because it's a little difficult to do this virtually the way there's still good stuff about face-to-face.

What's usually the response when this, and I don't know if Michelle or whoever would like to talk about that.

Yeah.

- Well, I think that the parents like the fact that we're motivating their child to read, and the fact that it's a family time event, they're reading it together as a family.

And they appreciate us, especially this year, being able to give them a book for them to have at home, read together.

And incentives with the prizes at school, the children see that they're stretching their brains, and learning, and gives them opportunities to have supper time discussions on the animals in the book.

- Well, and that's a good point because we always hear that people don't have time to sit down now in the family structure we talked about.

And this is a way to kind of pull people together, and make it a reading event, which we know that reading is the core of everything that we do.

So, yeah, so it touches all of those different bases.

- And families are traveling around the community together to go to these different mission stops.

The library is one of the mission stops, so it's really fun to see the families come in together, and to make decisions about who's gonna win.

because you can look at a picture and say, "Well, based on this picture, I think this animal would win."

But then we say, "Well, you have to really open up your book, and read it, and get that information too."

So it's quite stimulating for these families to move around together and see different businesses, like a treasure hunt.

- Sure, yeah.

And besides, we just talked about within the family group itself, but now we're talking, as you said, the whole community.

- Yes.

- It reaches through all of those different pieces, whether it's businesses, people getting together to do this as kind of a group get together as well.

- We had a situation with one of the businesses had a bit of water damage, and one of the things that was damaged was their poster.

And they called immediately to say, "Our poster is damaged."

And I thought, do you have more problems to worry about with a flood in your business?

- How important it was.

- But they knew that that's what their customers were coming in to see.

And yeah, so Rockh'em Sock'em was wonderful with saying, "We need that poster as soon as you can get it."

- [Steve] Yeah, wow, which speaks to how important.

- Exactly.

- How much people value it.

- Exactly.

- And I know there's no way to really quantify this, but is there any way to say, I mean, you look at this and go, "Okay, you got kids involved reading."

Can you see, I know you can't quantify it, obviously, but you probably get the feeling that this does help them then with their other coursework.

And it gets them into the reading mode, where maybe they wouldn't have been as incented before to do it.

- We really think this year we're going to see that exponentially more than we ever have in the past, because this being an information book, a non-fiction, - [Steve] Right.

- And we know that something our students sometimes struggle to know how to navigate, how to switch from reading for fun to reading to learn.

And these books are set up in such a way that they are learning while they're exploring and having fun.

And they can then translate those skills that they're navigating through the table of contents, and text features like text boxes, and headings, and subheadings, and diagrams.

They'll be able to apply that to then their classroom learning as well.

- Yeah, well, go ahead, sorry, Michelle, go ahead.

- And I was gonna just say, over the years, we have such a variety of books that we read.

So, as she said with it being non-fiction, that's a whole new dynamic.

But for example, the one last year and other ones in the past, they learned different writing styles.

And even with first graders, I saw them take some of those hints.

And I took some hints after the author visit on ways to try creative writing with them.

So I think that it also improves their creative writing skills too.

- Sure, yeah.

Yeah, because... Go ahead, I'm sorry, Maria, go ahead.

- I'm just was very excited at the library, the timing of this is really good because it's sort of towards the end of the school year, as we're going into the summer when the summer reading program at the library is really important to catch the kids.

- [Steve] To do this, and try keep them through the summer, and keep them, yeah, keep that learning process going.

- That momentum going, yeah.

That we don't want to have that learning loss.

So the library positions themselves as, "Okay, here we are."

- And you're right, the timing.

And yeah, you're right, hadn't thought about that too, that it does, provides that continuum gets, so they're not necessarily feeling like they're in school, but they're still learning.

And when they come back, they're better prepared.

And it's an interesting point you make, because yeah, I know that when we did this the last time, it was a non, or it was a fiction book.

- [Stacey] Yes.

- It was very entertaining.

And I'm trying to remember the author, but it was about a house.

- [Maria] Yes, "The House That Wasn't There".

- "The House That Wasn't There".

And, I think what's interesting here is these are done in a way that it doesn't feel like you're...

I mean, obviously it's not a textbook.

You get all of that information, but it's rolled out in a story form that makes you feel like you're really reading a story, not, "Oh, I'm looking at the biology book on."

- [Stacey] Right.

- Yeah, that kind of thing.

So, I think that's the incredible good part of it.

- [Maria] Right.

- When we come back, let's talk about the author event that's gonna take place, and how that's gonna roll.

And what people are gonna be allowed to do, and that sort of thing.

Because that's a big part of this too, actually meeting the author and the interaction with, in this case, the gentleman's gonna be coming in.

Back in just a moment.

We're talking about 1BookBG here on "The Journal".

Thanks for staying with us here on "The Journal".

Our guests are Michelle Rogers from St. Aloysius School here in Bowling Green.

Stacey Higgins from BG City Schools and Crim Elementary, and then Maria Simon from the Wood County District Public Library.

And Maria, obviously a big part of this is when the author comes to town and interacts with who've people have been reading the books, now they get to meet the author.

So kind of unroll how that's gonna take place and what's going to happen.

- [Maria] Well, we're very excited.

And he's gonna be at the library first on Sunday, May 14th.

- [Steve] Okay.

- At two o'clock in our atrium.

It will be very crowded, so we're excited about that.

He'll come in, and he'll do a presentation, and he'll be able to also sign books.

- [Steve] Oh, okay.

- [Maria] And he will have some books for sale as well.

- [Steve] Yeah.

- So he's written "The Who Would Win?"

series, which is so popular, but he's also written a lot of other, as you say, alphabet books.

So he's done a tremendous amount of research.

It's gonna be really fascinating to hear him talk about how he does his research on so many different topics, and how he goes into the field to do that.

We're hoping that kids have a lot of questions for him.

But Sunday, May 14th is the first presentation he's gonna do.

And that's for the public at the library at two o'clock.

It's Mother's Day, so I tease people and say, "Well, after you have your breakfast in bed."

- Stop on out, yeah.

- Come to the library, two o'clock.

So yeah, so we're really excited to share him there.

And then he's gonna be able to visit all the different schools on Monday and Tuesday.

So the children will be able to interact with him in an assembly at each school, so yeah.

- Now, Stacey, when he comes to Crim, what's sort of the game plan for that that day?

- Well, he will be visiting all of our buildings, as she mentioned.

And so he has a slide presentation that he'll be presenting to the students, but then we're most excited about some time for the students to ask him some questions.

- [Steve] Sure, yeah.

- [Maria] They'll have questions.

- Yeah, well, for sure, for sure.

- [Steve] And they'll be tough questions some of them.

- Probably, probably.

- [Maria] For sure, for sure.

- [Steve] Yeah.

- So we're very excited for them to get to meet him in real life.

That really is something a lot of the students can't get their heads around right now.

That this is a real person who has created these books, and gone through all the experiences it takes to be an author of non-fiction text.

- Yeah, and Michelle, similar to what's gonna happen at St. Al's then?

- Exactly, he'll be coming, kids will be ready with questions.

And one other thing I thought of is every book, he signed every book for the kids.

- [Steve] Oh my gosh.

- [Maria] Wow, isn't that great?

- Which was really amazing.

- Wow, wow.

Yeah, and that's pretty impressive.

And it is a good point that all of you have made, that meeting the actual author, because they read the book and it's like, "Well this is how..." I'm sure the questions are gonna be, "Well, how do you do this?

Where'd you get the idea for that book?"

That kind of thing, which then, as you all said, gets them thinking about being creative, and maybe helps them with their writing style if their interested.

Because I know when we had the one author on with "The House That Wasn't There", I said, well this must be pretty difficult, the whole process to come up with.

He's like, "Well no, it just sort of happens, and you look at something."

But I think it's always amazing if you can get someone to develop that creative thought process because a lot of just don't think that way.

- Well, and the kids are just so, they are so creative and they have so many questions.

So they will probably feed him more ideas for what two animals should be positioned in competition with each other.

And at the library, we do have blank books, so the kids can come to pick up a "Who Would Win?

", and then they can make their own.

- [Steve] Oh, make their own.

- And we did make one, my staff worked together to make one, and Emma finished it, but it was, "Who Would Win Tyrannosaurus Rex vs Unicorn?".

Oh, so fact versus fiction, so yeah.

- [Steve] Yeah, this kinda mingles all that together.

- Right, right.

So come in to the library and read, because it's on close reserve in the book, "Who Would Win Tyrannosaurus Rex vs Unicorns?"

- I think we look through the titles, and I don't like to say, director's not gonna be thrilled, but you've got "Whale vs Shark", you've got, well, here's the dinosaur one, "Triceratops vs Spinosaurus".

But it's interesting though that someone come up with two totally, a fictional and a, yeah.

- Right, we wanted to play really play with it.

- A totally fantasy thing versus an actual animal.

And, I think when I look at that, and you talk about this, that, yeah, kids have to be intrigued by this because it gets them, they're not just reading, they're actually learning, and they're actually thinking about, "Oh, well what about those two things?

Maybe that would be a good book to do."

So yeah, yeah.

- It's fun to have a book with a question mark in it.

- [Steve] Sure.

- Because you're immediately start off with, "Mmh, possibilities."

And there there is an answer at the end.

It's not always that one animal kills the other animal, because it might be that another animal backs off.

- [Steve] Right.

- But it is very dynamic.

(laughs) - Yeah, and I think the other thing that's interesting because, and you look at the covers, you look at this, they're very attractive color-wise too because of this.

And you get, right away, draws your attention to it.

But I was looking through, he does this whole alphabet thing, and some of the tiles.

- [Maria] Yeah.

- "The Icky Bug Counting Book".

I mean, I actually wanna look at that and see what are the icky bugs, you know what I mean?

- And how do you make all these choices for, or "The Military ABC Book", or just the... Yeah, a lot of nature, but also just boating.

And he's really done a lot of research, so.

- Yeah, there's "The Marines Alphabet Book", "The Navy Alpha Book", "The Army Alpha Book", "F Is For Fenway", which is Fenway Park in Boston, obviously.

- Right, he's funny.

- So sort of some geographical history as well, yeah.

- Just this weekend, I was at my grandkid's house, and we're looking through all their books.

And my grandson pulls out the one about jets because my son flies jets.

And so I'm like, "Oh my gosh, this author's coming to town."

I was so excited.

- Yeah, well, and it does make it really seem real to people.

Because it's like, "Oh."

Because we all get books, we read them, whether we're doing it digitally or actually have the book in our hands.

But when you actually meet the person, it does give you a whole insight into how they wrote the book.

And, oh, this is their style, this is the way they approach things.

And as you said too, it probably, when kids ask this gentleman questions, Jerry Pallotta, it helps them think about how they might structure, maybe not writing a book, but doing something else.

So it feeds through all those other things that they need to do educationally as well.

And I know too is, we just got a couple of moments here, have you already started to think about next year's book?

- [Maria] We have, we have.

- I knew that was part of the case, yeah.

- [Maria] For sure, for sure.

- This isn't, something just happens, like, "Oh, a couple of months ago we decided to do this."

- [Maria] Right, right.

- So what's have you, you're getting-- - We're trying to figure out if we can do the same, where we match up a book with an author visit.

And we'll see.

We need to find very affordable books, and then we need to have the confidence that the community is gonna be supportive of this project.

So, so far the community's been so supportive because they see the value of it.

- [Steve] Sure, yeah.

- And we're hoping that we get a really good run with these, so yeah.

- And I noticed when I, because I looked online at his website, and yeah, these books are like $3.99 for it.

It's not like you have to drop $19 through it, $29.99, that kind of thing.

So they're readily accessible, and just an incredible amount of information.

They don't appear to be that thick, but there's a ton of stuff in here.

- [Maria] Right, right.

And that's the research, and knowing then how to make it accessible.

- And it leaves you wanna read the next page, that's what I found interesting.

I'm kinda leafing through of all of this like, "Oh, so what's next, what's next, what's next?"

And so you can just imagine with kids, how intriguing that must be.

So just again, so the visitor date is, go through that again so people don't miss it.

- [Maria] May 14th, Sunday, May 14th, Mother's Day.

At the library at two o'clock.

- [Steve] Okay.

- [Maria] And then the next day at all the different schools.

And we're really grateful to the Marjorie Conrad Fund at the library to be able to support this.

- And it's Wood County District Public, there on Main Street in Bowling Green.

- [Maria] 251 North Main, that's right.

- So it's easy to find.

And yeah, beautiful building, lots of... Yeah, and yeah, that's really good, so yeah.

- [Maria] Good place to share, so.

- Yeah, and you don't just have to come on that day, you can visit, you can, yeah.

- Oh, yeah, we have a wonderful display of these books.

- [Steve] Sure.

- So come to the library and pick out all the Jerry books, and then other books that are similar to this series, we have.

Because other people have figured out that this is a really clever way to share information.

- Well, the one thing, and a shameless plug, but it reminded me of that we have a series called "Wild Kratts".

- Yes.

- Yes.

- Yes.

- It's so much similar to that, only in-- - Exactly.

- Yeah, so it's the same sort of approach, but obviously, in print versus video, so yeah.

- [Maria] Yes, that's a wonderful series.

- Great, great.

Well, Michelle Rogers, Stacey Higgins, Maria Simon, thank you so much for being here.

- Thank you.

- Thank you.

- And much success with this great thing for the community, great thing for kids and families.

I mean, everybody, it's a win all the way around for people.

So I appreciate you guys assembling us and doing it.

And come back next year when this is... We'll do this again, and we can.

- For sure.

- Thank you.

- Because it's always educational for me, if nothing else, so it's always a good thing.

So you can check us out at wbgu.org.

You can watch us every Thursday night at eight o'clock on WBGU-PBS.

We will see you again next time.

Good night and good luck.

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