School and Community Winter 2024

Custom Picture Books Make a Positive Impact

BY: CHELSEA TORNETTO I t’s easy to talk about the negative aspects of public education today. Learning loss due to the pandemic, shrinking student attention spans and budgets, screen addiction, trauma, apathy, poverty — the list goes on. However, a ground-breaking project in Jackson, Missouri aims to highlight the positive and remind students that their schools are something to celebrate. Over the past year, I had the honor of helping the Jackson R-2 School District publish a custom-made children’s book entitled, “Jackson: A Celebration Of Our Schools.” The colorful, rhyming book celebrates the educational journey of Jackson students from their first day of kindergarten through their high school graduation.

It features custom illustrations of real buildings, students, faculty and traditions of the district which are instantly recognizable to the community. The Inspiration Research tells us that the more a child can personally connect with a text, the better they will understand it. Librarians and teachers know that children gravitate towards books when they see themselves and their lives reflected in the pages. The more interested a child is in the topic of a book, the more deeply they will engage with it. Imagine the impact a book could make if it wasn’t just about the generic school experience, but instead featured buildings the students recognize, traditions they love and a future where THEY are

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