Harbor School pupils Sarah, Sam, Corrine, Megan, and Aiyana, all 11 to 13 years old, enjoyed looking at the new books Vashon Island Kiwanis donated to their library.This new Leaders are Readers program was tested in the fall of 2008 after a member read of another Kiwanis club whith a similar program. A private school on the island, Harbor School parents do not allow children's last names to be used in news or publicity photos.

School libraries on the Island need more books than budgets provide and Vashon Kiwanis is using the Vashon Community Fund to help fill that need. The Fund is replenished by pancake consumers at Festival.

Despite computer searches on the internet, not every student can get to use a computer when he or she wants to. Maybe daddy or mommy is already using it and the family can't afford more than one. Perhaps all the computers at schooll and the lirary are in use, etc. So Vashon Kiwanians buy books for financially pressured schools of our Island children. Books usually are delivered by Christmas.

The action flowed from a survey of school librarians. Vashon Kiwanis Club’s Leaders are Readers project is a catalyst to make those books available to kids in public and private schools like Harbor School and Homestead School, said chairperson Jean Bosch.

Kiwanians world wide change the world one child, one family at a time through service to communities and children. “What better service than helping develop the leaders of tomorrow?” she asked.

“We ask community members who appreciate books to donate the books or cash to buy needed books. This quiet effort is intended to be a continuing effort, not a once-a-year event,” she added.

Vashon Kiwanis also sponsors the Key Club at Vashon High School and Builders Club at McMurray middle school where students learn and practice leadership in service to their communities. The Kiwanis Community Fund comes from pancake sales at Festival and annual Community Calendar sales ending this week.

More? Call our Leaders are Readers chairperson, Jean Bosch, 567-1600 (business) or 463-5223.

Books given to Chautauqua

The World Alamanac and Book of Facts 2008
My First Book of Sign (Pamela Baker)
A School Like Mine (DK Publishing and UNICEF)
Encyclopedia of Animals (Karen McGhee and George McKay)
Night Sky Atlas (Robin Scagell)
Our Fifty States (Mark H. Buckenhauer)
Airborne: A Photogeiography of Wilbur and Orville Wright (Mary Collins)
Book of Constellations (Robin Kerrod)

Books given to Vashon High School

American Shanlin (Matthew Polly)
Bad Monkeys (Matt Ruff)
The God of Animals (Aryn Kyle)
Mister Pip (Lloyd Jones)
The Name of the Wind (Patrick Rothfuss)
The Night Birds (Thomas Alman)
The Spellman Files (Lisa Lurz)
Tales from the Farm: Essex County v. 1 (Jeff Lemire)

Books given to Harbor School

The Collected Short Stories (Roald Dahl)
Have Spacesuit Will Travel (Robert Heinlein)
Sabriel
Lirael
Abhorsen—three volumes (Garth Nix)
Peace Like a River (LL Enger)
Sudden Fiction and Sudden Fiction Continued (Robert Shapard and others)

Books given to McMurray middle school

Those Amazing Musical Instruments (Genevieve Helsby)
Life on Earth-and Beyond: An Astrobiologist’s Quest (Pamela Turner)
Storm Chaser: A Photographer’s Journer (Jim Reed)
Beowulf: A Hero’s Tale Retold (James Rumford)
The Ledgerbook of Thomas Blue Eagle (Gay Matthaei)
Outside and Inside Wooly Mammoth (Sandra Markle)
Real Food, Real Fast (Sam Stern)
A History of Western Art: From Prehistory to the Twentieth Century (Antony Mason)

Books given to Homestead School

Keepers of the Animal: Native American Stories and Wildlife Activities
for Children, by Caduto and Bruchac
Keepers of the Earth: Native American Stories and Env. Activities for
Children, by Caduto and Bruchac
Keepers of Life: Discovering Plants through Native
American Stories and Earth Activities for Children, by Caduto and Bruchac
Forgotten Arts and Crafts, John Seymour
Forgotten Household Crafts, Seymour and Emerson-Roberts
The Essential Wild Food Survival Guide, Linda Runyon
From Earth to Herbalist, Gregory Tilford
Shaneleya's Quest, Tom Elpel
Deerskins to Buckskins: How to tan with brains,
soap or eggs, by Matt Richards
Kamana for Kids: The Young Naturalist

Chatauquah elementary school received Kiwanis books from Kiwanis and Kat Atwell and Hana Hurd looked them over. before putting them into the stock of books.

Kate Atwell and Hanna Hurd look over the books summer pancake consumers bought for their Chatauquah school library. Kiwanis used Community Fund money from the Kiwanis Festival Pancake Breakfast to buy books requested by the libraries of five public and private school.

McMuray school librarian Julie Jaffee shelves some of the books she sai kids would gain from having available. Youths seem to be reading more at this age than awhile ago, but their tastes change rapidly, so it is hard to tell. This was a trial program for Kiwanis.