| By Caroline Drexler |
Background
I began my career at Gale as a library sales consultant in February of 2000, moving to my current customer success manager role in 2016. Within my first two years at Gale, I heard about an organization working with students at the local elementary school since 1998 called the Hillside Mentor program. At the time Laurie Fundukian was heading up this program, she worked in the editorial department at Gale for over 17 years.
Typically, each fall the Hillside Mentor team reaches out to the school to determine the start date of the program—we solicit Gale folks to get volunteers. Normally, we get about 30 volunteers, but there is no limit due to the massive amount of kids requesting help. Usually, one or two students are assigned a mentor, for one hour every week. We meet with the student in the library or classroom and read to them while they eat lunch, while trying to encourage them to read to us. Some days, we play a game or talk but as a mentor, our job is to improve their skills by encouraging them to read.
Dylan’s Story
When I joined the program I was assigned a student who was not only a poor reader, but also had many challenges at home. His name was Dylan, a kindergartner at Hillside Elementary, who was living with his grandparents. He was never read to as a child and dealt with the immense struggles of a missing father and drug addicted mother. I could tell he was a very curious child, but had issues focusing on a specific task.
Secret Sisters by Jayne Ann Krentz is the story of two childhood friends, Madeline and Daphne, who experienced a terrifying attack and have done their best to move on with their lives. Madeline runs a chain of luxury hotels and Daphne is a designer. But the secret that they share reunites them as adults and they journey back to a small island off the coast of Seattle, the site of their childhood trauma. Using Nancy Pearl’s Readers Advisory methodology, let me tell you about the doorways that I found most appealing. I was drawn to the character of Madeline, a successful career woman who struggles with intimacy and lost track of her childhood friend. 