Inmates Reach Out to Children With Reading

Erika Gonzales is reading to her 2-year-old boy, Jimmy. It’s a simple book about the simple things children do: visit the corner, take the bus to Grandma’s, go to first grade.

But barely a sentence along, she tosses the book down.

Crying and swiping at tears with the palms of her hands, she whispers, “I can’t read it.”

Then she gathers herself and starts reading again--into a cold, black tape recorder. Jimmy is 125 miles away in Joliet. Gonzales is in prison.

“Mommy misses you and loves you,” she tells the recorder. “She’s going to read you a book to let you know this is me and I love you.”

She soon finishes the story, then gives the recording to the volunteers who will make sure it is mailed.

This is the Storybook Project, a program built around the simple idea that parents in prison should have a chance to read to their children. Volunteers collect books and recorders, take them to prisons, and let inmates record stories and personal messages.

“It’s an amazing experience to go in and realize just how much these parents care for their kids,” said Linda Ketcham, who runs the program for Lutheran Social Services. “Part of what we’re trying to do is make sure kids know Mom is OK. Many of them are very frightened for their parents.”

Gonzales, a soft-spoken 18-year-old with her hair in a long ponytail, said her sister is caring for Jimmy while she serves a year for robbery and battery. She has not seen him in almost five months.

“I just want him to hear my voice,” Gonzales said. “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking. I’m ready to go home to my child. I want to quit drinking and all that stuff.”

The Storybook Project gives her a way to reach her son. But the volunteers staffing the project try not to get carried away over the impact of that contact.

“We’re talking about a little 15-minute experience here,” said volunteer Linda Thomas. “This is not going to cure the family’s problems. But I can’t help thinking [that] from the child’s perspective, it will be a memory of a loving moment.”

The volunteers arrive at Logan Correctional Center, a medium-security prison with 641 women and 1,038 men, about 9 a.m. It is past 9:30 before security allows them in.

Most have been doing this monthly since May. That’s when this central Illinois project got its start. It is modeled after similar programs serving county jail prisoners in southern Illinois and Chicago.

Inmates at Logan leaped at the chance to take part, said Sandra Kibby-Brown, an assistant warden. Dozens of inmates have signed up, with more requests coming in every day.

The volunteers set up in one of the prison classrooms, filling it with books: “Big Bird’s Busy Day.” “David and Goliath.” “A Is for Africa.” “Willie Mays.”

Inmates--all but one of them women--trickle in to browse. Some want a book that will appeal to all their children, from toddlers to teenagers. Others want a religious book, or a book about sharing.

Books for little children can be recorded in just a few minutes. With longer books for older children, prisoners commonly record the first chapter and encourage the children to finish it for themselves.

Once the recording is done, the tape and book are packaged and sent off to the child.

Volunteer Sally Wolf said some prisoners stumble over the stories and others read them fluidly. Some cry and some maintain their composure--at first.

“Even the most stoic ones get a little emotional by the end,” Wolf said. “It’s that ‘Bye, I’ll see you’ thing that gets them.”

She recalled one inmate who brought dogeared pictures of her children. She placed the pictures on the recorder and read to them.

“We were both bawling,” Wolf said.

Alice Turner has five children, the youngest of them born in prison. She has not seen them in months.

She should get out in March after serving more than two years for residential burglary. Turner said she has been working on her high school degree and wants to try college when she gets out.

Sitting in a classroom next to a set of 1978 encyclopedias, she reads to her children. “Sweet Pea’s Thank-You Book” encourages them to appreciate daydreams and flowers and playing with friends.

“That was a nice little book,” she tells the children. “Give each other a big kiss for me. Bye-bye.”