Offsetting the Diploma Deficit

Today, the high school dropout rate has reached epidemic levels. There are nearly 40 million Americans without a high school diploma—and those adults looking to return to high school have limited options. The startling figures below from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2012 American Community Survey, uncover just how many adults in each state has less … Read more

Never Know Where Influence Will End…

By Jessica D. 

I was lucky enough to have been raised by a mother who was steeped in reading from a young age. Given that, she surrounded us with books, magazines, newspapers. Not only did she volunteer in our school library, but she made weekly trips to the library a necessity in our house. We’d enter and my sister and I would make our way into the children’s section. Usually, I’d head straight to find “my” copy of Molly Bang’s The Grey Lady and the Strawberry Snatcher and my older sister would search out for “her” A Cache of Jewels. My mother signed us up for every summer reading program and we’d meticulously track our reading and books.

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Sacred Space

By Cyn D. 

The building is still there, though it’s used as a “performance” space now, I believe. But the majestic marble and wood rotunda of the Main Library in downtown Chicago was a magic portal, a grand and sacred space. The huge rooms surrounding the rotunda offered not just books but movies, vinyl recordings of the jazz greats and classics of all genres, art work you could actually take home and place on your own walls…amazing treasures.

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