Maine Reads grew from the Maine Family Literacy Task Force, a group consisting of heads of literacy organizations in the state, which was formed to facilitate a Barbara Bush Foundation literacy grant received in the late nineties. When that grant ended in 2002, the group morphed into the Maine Reads Advisory Board and has continued to meet annually at the Blaine House. The Advisory Board consists of approximately 25 literacy leaders from about twenty organizations including the Maine Department of Education, Headstart, Maine Parent Federation, Literacy Partners, Raising Readers, Maine Humanities Council, and Maine Public Broadcasting Network.
In addition to working to connect the public with literacy organizations, creating a forum for them to convene, Maine Reads offers the following programs.
Read With ME
For the past eight years, Maine Reads has presented Read With ME., an outreach program that gets books to Maine’s kindergartners. Maine Reads distributes 18,000 bookbags containing a book and reading activity handouts to every public school kindergartner in Maine; bookbags were also distributed to kindergartners who are homeschooled or attend private or parochial schools that chose to participate in the program. Each year, the featured bookbag book is either written or illustrated by a Mainer, and often these authors and illustrators make the rounds of the schools. The bookbags are distributed statewide with the help of a loyal volunteer corps, including members of the Army National Guard and Verizon technicians. Read With ME. is made possible by the Verizon Foundation.
Maine Community Literacy Project
The Maine Community Literacy Project is designed to encourage communities to examine their literacy needs and goals and address these needs. Libraries are the lead organizations for this process and so are eligible for planning and implementation grants from Maine Reads.
To receive Maine Reads Community Literacy Project implementation grants funding, which helps cover the cost of presenting programs designed to address a community’s literacy needs, libraries must first apply to Maine Reads for planning grant funding. More than forty libraries have received planning grants over the past three years. Planning grants mandate that libraries create local literacy advisory panels, hold a public forum on literacy, review existing literacy programs, and determine literacy needs and possible collaborative projects addressing those needs.
Libraries that fulfilled the requirements of the planning grant are eligible to apply for a Maine Reads Community Literacy Project implementation grant. Implementation grant funding ranged from $500 to $2,000. Projects and programs receiving funding have ranged from a mobile unit to deliver books and programs to a rural community, to a readers' theatre workshop to a literacy program designed to develop kindergarten reading readiness skills. Targeted audiences ranged from children, to male teens, to seniors. Over the past three years more than forty Maine libraries have received funding through the Maine Community Literacy Project. Information drawn from these grants and their final reports is posted on the Maine Reads Web site.
Maine Festival of the Book
(Schedule of 2008 Maine Festival of the Book)
While the Maine Reads Community Literacy Project afforded the opportunity for literacy outreach activities at a grassroots and generally rural level, the Maine Reads Festival of the Book draws on the writing talent proliferating Maine and is held in an urban setting.
The Maine Festival of the Book 2008, a celebration of reading and writing, will be held in the spring in downtown Portland. The expectation is to attract people from all over the state, as well as readers from far beyond, to a concentrated literary extravaganza.
A variety of programs of all genres designed to appeal to audiences of all ages will be presented. Much of the adult programming will be dedicated to thematic conversations among writers. In addition there will be readings, poetry out loud and other performances, booksignings, and a mélange of activities for young and old and all reading levels.
Major writers from outside the State once again will join Maine's cadre of outstanding authors. Past presenters include Pulitzer Prize winners David McCullough, Richard Ford,and Maxine Kumin, best-selling author Tess Gerritsen, and National Book Critics Circle Award finalist Jane Brox. Presenters for childrens’ programming included Brian Lies, Scott Nash, and Allen Sockabasin.
Maine Reads Board of Trustees 2007-8
Edward Dinan
President
Wes Bonney
Treasurer
Nancy Arnold
Secretary
Karen M. Baldacci
Colin Sargent
Celeste Viger
Dahlia Lynn