Behind the Book
Mission:
Behind the Book’s mission is to excite children and young adults about reading. Working with low-income students in New York City’s K-12 public schools, Behind the Book brings authors and their books into individual classrooms to build literacy skills and nurture a new generation of book readers. Our authors and illustrators work closely with teachers and administrators to integrate the books with the class curriculum and often make several visits to the classrooms. Students are given copies of the books well in advance of the visit to allow time for classroom study and discussion of the literature.
We make reading something more than schoolwork—we make reading something kids truly enjoy.
Contact Information
Location
General Information
Type: Reading/Literacy
Target audience: Students, Parents, Families, Teachers, Organizations, Administrators, Schools, Authors/Illustrators, All individuals interested in literacy in NYC public schools
Year founded: 2003
Tag words: Literacy, reading, author visits
Programs/Services
The WITT Seminar
Description: A year-long study of the intersection of writing and community activism by 11th- and 12th-grade students that culminated in a Bronx-wide conference. Students have worked with author Sarah Schulman, spoken word poet Suheir Hammad, and New Yorker journalist George Packer. They interviewed community activists whose profiles were published in a special issue of the school literary magazine, The Magpie. This is the fourth year that we are supporting the WITT seminar at DeWitt Clinton.
Fees for services:
Ages of students: 11th and 12th Grade Students
Schools/sites: DeWitt Clinton High School
Contact person:
Literary Criticism Class
Description: André Aciman, Colum McCann, and Martha Southgate worked with a class of 12th-grade students who studied literary criticism through the works of the award-winning authors. Students wrote literary criticism essays analyzing the authors’ works.
Fees for services:
Ages of students: 12th Grade Students
Schools/sites: DeWitt Clinton High School
Contact person:
Writing Workshops
Description: Authors Rita Williams-Garcia and Coe Booth each led a fiction writing workshop for 9th-grade students.
Fees for services:
Ages of students: 9th Grade Students
Schools/sites: Brooklyn Comm High School-Comm, Arts, Media
Contact person:
Public Speaking Workshop
Description: Kevin Powell, an essayist and candidate for Congress, worked with students in his Brooklyn neighborhood on a study of rhetoric and oratory. After reading Mr. Powell’s book of essays Someday We’ll All Be Free, 11th-grade students wrote and delivered their own persuasive speeches.
Fees for services:
Ages of students: 11th Grade Students
Schools/sites: Brooklyn Comm High School-Comm, Arts, Media
Contact person:
A Study of Branding and Propaganda
Description: 11th-grade students read Erin Patton’s Under the Influence: Tracing the Hip Hop’s Generation’s Impact on Brands, Sports, and Pop Culture and Ms. Quart’s Branded: The Buying And Selling of Teenagers to study propaganda aimed at teens. They then wrote essays about the influence of these types of propaganda on society and youth culture.
Fees for services:
Ages of students: 11th Grade Students
Schools/sites: Brooklyn Comm High School-Comm, Arts, Media
Contact person:
Storytelling Workshop
Description: Students read and discussed Martha Southgate’s novel Third Girl From the Left, about three generations of African-American women. Behind the Book partnered with The Moth, a literary arts nonprofit focused on storytelling. In tandem with Ms. Southgate’s visits and literary discussion, five story coaches from The Moth helped students create their own personal narratives on the theme of secrets, which they then performed in front of an audience of their peers.
Fees for services:
Ages of students: High School Students
Schools/sites: Harvey Milk High School
Contact person:
Holocaust Study
Description: Tenth-grade students participated in an interdisciplinary study of the Holocaust. They read The Diary of Anne Frank in their English class and studied the Holocaust in their history class. Class discussions were led by Francine Prose, author of A Changed Man (winner of the Dayton Literary Peace Prize) and an upcoming book about the contemporary significance of Anne Frank’s story. In their English class, students wrote journal entries about their own lives to study the personal narrative form. They then wrote their own personal narratives based on their journal entries. Behind the Book is partnering with the Anne Frank Center, who brought in a teaching artist to help students create self-portraits to accompany their narratives. Students also learned about the contemporary effects of genocide by reading A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah, a former child soldier in Sierra Leone who currently works for Human Rights Watch in New York. Mr. Beah visited the class in May to discuss his book. In lieu of accepting his honorarium, Mr. Beah generously donated the money to be used for a writing contest on the topic of how children who are placed in adult situations are affected.
Fees for services:
Ages of students: 10th Grade
Schools/sites: Thurgood Marshall Acad for Learning
Contact person:
Writing Workshops
Description: Author Rita Williams-Garcia led a fiction writing workshop based on her novel Like Sisters on the Homefront, about a teen mother. Journalist Patricia McCormick led a workshop on the role of journalists in advocating for disadvantaged individuals based on her novel Sold, about human trafficking in India. Author Sharon Draper led the culminating workshop for all 9th-grade students, based on her book Tears of a Tiger. All students wrote essays as responses to their class study of the books.
Fees for services:
Ages of students: 9th Grade Students
Schools/sites: Thurgood Marshall Acad for Learning
Contact person:
Poetry and Illustration Workshop
Description: Students in a 6th-grade class read Bird, a story of a boy whose older brother dies suddenly, told through poetry. They worked with the author, Zetta Elliott, and the illustrator, Shadra Strickland, to create illustrated books of poetry.
Fees for services:
Ages of students: 6th Grade Students
Schools/sites: Junior High School 13 Jackie Robinson
Contact person:
The Apollo Project
Description: Sixth-grade students will read Trish Marx’s Steel Drumming at the Apollo, which chronicles the efforts of a group of high school students who compete in the Apollo Theater’s famed Amateur Night. To complement the book, the students researched the history of the legendary Apollo Theater and took a guided tour of the building. They then wrote poetry about their experiences at the Apollo.
Fees for services:
Ages of students: 6th Grade Students
Schools/sites: Junior High School 13 Jackie Robinson
Contact person:
Poetry Workshop
Description: Author Greg Neri led a workshop on urban poetry for 7th-grade students based on his book Chess Rumble.
Fees for services:
Ages of students: 7th Grade Students
Schools/sites: Junior High School 13 Jackie Robinson
Contact person:
Writing Workshops
Description: ): Author Todd Strasser led a fiction writing workshop based on his book Boot Camp for 7th-graders. Eighth-grade students read Charles R. Smith’s novel Chameleon and participated in an expository writing workshop. Tony Medina discussed his poetry with 8th-grade students, and the students wrote poetry after this discussion.
Fees for services:
Ages of students: 7th and 8th Grade Students
Schools/sites: Junior High School 13 Jackie Robinson
Contact person:
A Fiction and Film Project
Description: Caldecott Award-winner Brian Selznick will lead a fiction workshop based on his book The Invention of Hugo Cabret. Students will visit the Museum of the Moving Image as a culmination of a study of the beginnings of film history and its connection with the book’s plot and cinematic style of narration.
Fees for services:
Ages of students: 7th and 8th Grade Students
Schools/sites: Junior High School 13 Jackie Robinson
Contact person:
Storytelling Workshop
Description: Author Irene Smalls talked about her book My Nana and Me with the entire grade of Kindergarten students. Students wrote and illustrated pages in a class book about their relationship with a family member.
Fees for services:
Ages of students: Kindergarten Students
Schools/sites: P.S. 21 Crispus Attucks School
Contact person:
Illustrated Book Projects
Description: Authors Paul Dubois Jacobs and Jennifer Swender led an illustrated book workshop for 1st-grade students based on their book My Subway Ride. Students wrote and illustrated pages in a class book about their experiences on the subway.
Author Zetta Elliot and illustrator Shadra Strickland led a 4th-grade class in a workshop to write and illustrate their own poetry, based on Ms. Elliot’s book Bird.
Author Doreen Rappaport worked with a 5th-grade class to create illustrated books based on her books Escape from Slavery and Martin’s Big Words, about the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Each student wrote and illustrated his or her own biography of a famous African-American.
Another group of fifth-grade students worked with author Kai Jackson Issa and her book Howard Thurman’s Great Hope, about the life of one of the first leaders of the Civil Rights Movement. Each student wrote and illustrated his or her own biography of a famous African-American.
Fees for services:
Ages of students: 1st, 4th and 5th Grade Students
Schools/sites: P.S. 21 Crispus Attucks School
Contact person:
Superhero Project
Description: Author/photographer Marc Tauss worked with 2nd-grade students on discussing the idea of superheroes. Students read his book Superhero and wrote character profiles about their own superheroes that were the basis for creative representations—costumes with decorated capes and masks. Photos of students as everyday citizens and as superheroes were matched with the character profiles to form a class book.
Fees for services:
Ages of students: 2nd Grade Students
Schools/sites: P.S. 21 Crispus Attucks School
Contact person:
Illustrated Poetry Project
Description: Author and poet Tony Medina and illustrator Sean Qualls worked with 4th-grade students, focusing on Mr. Medina’s poetry books, Love to Langston and I and I: Bob Marley. Students wrote and illustrated their own poetry books.
Fees for services:
Ages of students: 4th Grade Students
Schools/sites: P.S. 21 Crispus Attucks School
Contact person:
A Peek Into Publishing
Description: Random House opened its office doors to 5th-grade students, who toured the facilities and met with publishing professionals as well as participated in a mock publishing project. Students read two manuscripts and decided, in small groups, which book they would choose to publish. They then presented their decision and reasoning to the class.
Fees for services:
Ages of students: 5th Grade Students
Schools/sites: P.S. 21 Crispus Attucks School
Contact person:
Illustrated Book Project
Description: A 3rd-grade class studying China worked with writer-illustrator Kam Mak, author of My Chinatown and creator of two U.S. postage stamps in celebration of the Chinese New Year. Students read and discussed My Chinatown, in which Mr. Mak describes his childhood growing up in New York City’s Chinatown. Mr. Mak led a walking tour of Chinatown, helping students to better understand and visualize the people and places described in the book. Students took notes during the tour and then drew their own postage stamps, which they accompanied with a written description, depicting various Chinatown scenes. Students also wrote poems about their own neighborhoods.
Fees for services:
Ages of students: 3rd Grade Students
Schools/sites: P.S. 274 Kosciusko School
Contact person:
The Hudson River Project
Description: Students in a 4th-grade class read Joan Goodman’s biography of Henry Hudson, Beyond the Sea of Ice: the Voyages of Henry Hudson. In conjunction with the author’s visits, students conducted an interdisciplinary study of the Hudson River. For science, they studied river ecology; for social studies, they studied world exploration; and for language arts, they learned descriptive writing. To supplement their classroom work, students took a field trip to the Hudson River. As a final project, they each created books that incorporated the results of science experiments, their knowledge of world exploration history, and written observations from their field trip.
Fees for services:
Ages of students: 4th Grade Students
Schools/sites: P.S. 274 Kosciusko School
Contact person:
Gender Bias Studies
Description: To explore whether current research on gender and education was applicable to students at PS 274 and to find out whether classes separated by gender would make a difference in students’ participation in reading and writing, the principal of PS 274 decided to conduct the same Behind the Book program in a class that was separated into two sections by gender. In separate sections, boys and girls used literature as a lens to explore gender bias in their own personal experiences. Both sections worked with poet Tony Medina, using his books I to I: Bob Marley and Love to Langston. Students examined characterization and gender roles in the poems.
Fees for services:
Ages of students: 5th Grade Students
Schools/sites: P.S. 274 Kosciusko School
Contact person:
Collage Project
Description: Author-illustrator Marthe Jocelyn worked with a 1st-grade classroom in an exploration of language and primary math concepts through study of Hannah and the Seven Dresses and Hannah’s Collections. Students produced their own collages using various fabrics and materials.
Fees for services:
Ages of students: 1st Grade Students
Schools/sites: P.S. 116 William C Hughley School
Contact person:
Superhero Story Project
Description: Author/photographer Marc Tauss worked with 2nd-grade students on discussing the idea of superheroes. Students read his book Superhero and wrote character profiles about their own superheroes that were the basis for creative representations—costumes with decorated capes and masks. Photos of students as everyday citizens and as superheroes were matched with the character profiles to form a class book.
Fees for services:
Ages of students: 2nd Grade Students
Schools/sites: P.S. 116 William C Hughley School
Contact person:
Illustrated Book Projects
Description: Susanna Pitzer, author of Not Afraid of Dogs, explored the idea of bravery with 2nd-grade students. Students wrote short narratives about how they overcame their own fears.
5th-grade students worked with Newbury-winner Gail Carson Levine to study the Harlem Renaissance through her book Dave at Night. Students researched different Harlem Renaissance topics and created related illustrated books.
4th-grade students worked with Trish Marx and her book Elephants and Golden Thrones, about China
Fees for services:
Ages of students: 2nd, 4th and 5th Grade Students
Schools/sites: P.S. 116 William C Hughley School
Contact person:
