Hello All,

Monday starts the beginning of our initial book drive for 50,000 books. I appreciate the support of Chad DeBoard, who designed thedayihitahomerun, Tim Fauley, who is in charge of getting our site out to the world, and Nick Brunker who just handed over the voice over for the play by play. All this professional help has been done on a shoestring budget without the directive of a CEO or manager. Our team has its own unique skills and our mission is clearly defined: Place in front of tomorrow's future class of students THE DAY I HIT A HOME RUN AT GREAT AMERICAN BALL PARK.

For the record, I did consult several of largest literacy groups and tried to partner with them and yet was apologetically turned down. My blunder was I first asked teachers and librarians if they'd be interested in a book giveaway and my willingness to go their schools to talk to their students about the importance of reading using my book as a guide. Demand has been such that I've only talked to seven schools and yet there is a need already for 50,000 books. But I don't have the funds for 50,000 books.

Why is there such a following for this book? Last year's test results are in and reading test scores continue to slide to where now in some states over half the students don't read at grade level. When I taught at Hardee Junior High, I remember one student that I convinced to take the STAR test because he could get out of my class and get rewarded with prizes based on the number of books he read. He took the test and his score was 2.7. Being somewhat unfamiliar with the STAR results, he and I walked down a row of books at the library and kept moving down until we got to the 2.7 section. With some anticipation, my student pulled out a book and to his surprise it was a child's picture book with big lettering and more cartoons than meaningful words. He turned to me and asked, "Mr. Mullen, does this mean I'm stupid?"

Giving an eighth grade young adult a toddler's book is the very worst thing to do. Giving a whole class of students a free library or free books to read without being in front of them and telling them why you, the author, wrote it is like giving a gifted tuba player a football and telling him to practice with the ball on his own time because next week he'll be the starting quarterback. You want struggling readers to read give them a book that won't embarrass him or her to have it visibly seen on their possession. Some of the reading blunders--not all--are because we fail to realize that these students lack verbal skills not social skills.