The We the People Bookshelf project for libraries is a national grant initiative that provides classic children’s literature to school and public libraries. In 2008, 3,000 school and public libraries in all 50 U.S. states received We the People Bookshelf grants. These libraries received free hardcover editions of 17 classic books on the theme of “Created Equal.” The awards are part of the National Endowment for the Humanities We the People initiative, which supports projects that strengthen the teaching, study and understanding of American history and culture. Choctaw Elementary School was one of the schools that received the grant this year.
The
We the People Bookshelf will be housed in a special area in the
non-fiction section of the library. Parents, as well as students, are
welcome to check out these books. We also received a History in a Box
Kit on Abraham Lincoln kit, developed by the Gilder Lehrman Institute of
American History, that contains a resource book (print and CD formats), DVD,
interactive CD-ROM, and posters, featuring primary source documents,
photographs, artwork, maps, songs, and other teaching resources, that
teachers will be able to check out and use in their classrooms. Each
student received a We the People Bookshelf bookmark during the Rise and
Shine Assembly on Friday, May 2, 2008.
The
We the People Bookshelf on “Created
Equal” includes the following books:
·
Grades
K-3:
“The Ugly Duckling” by Hans
Christian Anderson, “The Gettysburg Address” by Abraham Lincoln, and “Pink
and Say” by Patricia Polacco.
·
Grades
4-6:
“Elijah of Buxton” by Christopher Paul Curtis, “Give Me Liberty!
The Story of the Declaration of Independence” by Russell Freedman, “Lincoln:
A Photobiography” By Russell Freedman, “Many Thousand Gone: African
Americans from Slavery to Freedom” by Virginia Hamilton, and “Lyddie” by
Katherine Paterson.
· Grades 7-8: “Saturnalia” by Paul Fleishman, “Freedom Walkers: The Story of the Montgomery Bus Boycott” by Russell Freedman, “Abraham Lincoln the Writer: A Treasury of His Greatest Speeches and Letters” edited by Harold Holzer, and “Breaking Through” by Francisco Jiménez.
· Grades 9-12: “Abigail Adams: Witness to a Revolution” by Natalie S. Bober, “That All People May Be One People, Send Rain to Wash the Face of the Earth” by Nez Perce Chief Joseph, “Flowers for Algernon” by Daniel Keyes, “Lincoln’s Virtues: An Ethical Biography” by William Lee Miller, and “Amistad: A Novel” by David Pesci.