PEOPLE MAKING A DIFFERENCE

BookPALS (Performing Artists for Literacy in Schools)

Mission: To improve literacy by building relationships and bringing books to life.

Every week, BookPALS (Performing Artists for Literacy in the Schools) sends actors and actresses into hundreds of schools nationwide to read books and bring them to life for students in kindergarten through third grade. The program is run by the Screen Actors Guild Foundation and was founded in 1993 by actress Barbara Bain (“Mission Impossible”). In their hourlong performances, BookPALS turn pages, field questions and flip between the voices of scary monsters and friendly dinosaurs.

The audiences love it. Sometimes the students become friends with their readers. Actress Liz Ryan, who reads at Coeur D’Alene Elementary School in Venice, says that she has had students show up on her doorstep wanting her to reread a favorite book. Some BookPALS volunteers have even left acting to enter teaching or write children’s books.

Reading aloud is cited almost universally as one of the main methods of developing literacy in children, largely because it communicates positive attitudes about reading. Because actors are cool, the reasoning goes, books read by actors will be cool too. (For more information, call [323]-549-6711.)

* Quote: “The actors are used to live performance and doing voices. They are not afraid to let themselves go, and the kids eat it up. The kids see an adult who cares about them.”

--Jennifer Wenborg, BookPALS

coordinator for Los Angeles