Archived - 2004

March 2004

Rachel Hodges awarded the Crystal Apple Award

Comments by Nancy Zimmerman at an awards presentation in Toronto, Canada in July 2003

The Crystal Apple Award of the American Association of School Librarians (AASL) is given at the discretion of the AASL President with the approval of the AASL Board to an individual or group who has had significant impact on school libraries and students. As the 2003 President of AASL, I am honored today to present my Crystal Apple Award to Rachel Hodges, former First Lady of South Carolina, and to Scholastic, Inc., sponsor of the Youth Corps of Rachel's Readers.

As First Lady, Rachel Hodges launched the"Reading with Rachel" program in 1999 to help instill a love of reading in South Carolina's children. During her tenure as First Lady, Mrs. Hodges visited over 250 classrooms in the state and distributed over 300,000 books, donated by 18 publishers and selected by state educators, to students and school libraries in South Carolina. Sponsoring publishers have arranged for several children's authors to come to South Carolina in support of literacy and Reading with Rachel including Jon Sciesszka, Debbie Allen, Brian Jaques, Rosemary Wells, Jan Brett, Pam Munoz Ryan, Jonathon Scott Fuqua, Mark Teague, Ruby Bridges, Joyce Hansen, and Jerry Pinkney.

Two volunteer groups, "Rachel's Readers," were established in 2000 to expand the popular initiative. Rachel's Readers were trained by Professors Pat Feehan and Nancy Zimmerman in the School of Library and Information Science at the University of South Carolina's BEST Center. The adult volunteer readers adopt schools and read there each month, presenting the media center with copies of the Reading with Rachel Book of the Month. The youth volunteers, consisting of teen Girl and Boy Scouts, present scripted reading programs in school libraries, public libraries, after school programs, and day care centers, giving each child in attendance a book generously donated by Scholastic, Inc. To date, 6,000 books have been distributed directly to the children of South Carolina by the youth volunteers because of the vision of Mrs. Hodges and the generosity of Scholastic, Inc.

Beyond putting books in the hands of children, Rachel's Readers promotes reading and school libraries and calls attention to literacy issues. The program has been featured nationally on Live with Regis and Kelly, in Publisher's Weekly, on CNN Headline News and CSPAN, and has been covered by every major media market in South Carolina. For this model program, Rachel's Readers, that partners government, business, education, non-profit agencies, and school libraries in the promotion of reading and literacy, and for their efforts as advocates of reading and school libraries, AASL honors Mrs. Rachel Hodges and Scholastic, Inc., supporter of the "Rachel's Readers" youth volunteer program.

Nancy P. Zimmerman, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
University of South Carolina
College of Mass Communication and Information Studies