At the Richland County Public Library, we know how rewarding it is to make a difference in the lives of children, by bringing them together with books. So we were thrilled when the city of Columbia and Richland School District One took us up on our suggestion to select All Around Town: The Photos of Richard Samuel Roberts, as the book for the 2012 “Together We Can” reading initiative.  

During January and February, 2,000 3rd graders from Richland School District One visited the Columbia Museum of Art, to learn about the photographs of Richard Samuel Roberts, a prominent photographer whose photographs tell the story of African American life during the 1920s in Columbia, South Carolina.

Dinah Johnson, renowned author of many books for children and professor at USC, has written a children’s picture book bringing the photos of Mr. Roberts to life, and encouraging readers to imagine what the lives of these people were like. This book, All Around Town: The Photos of Richard Samuel Roberts, was met with critical acclaim and nationally recognition when it was published in 1998.

As part of this initiative, the 3rd graders visited the Columbia Museum of Art for inspiring sessions with Ms. Johnson, and also received an autographed copy of the book.

And we have been right there when the 2,000 children stream into the museum for an enriching morning of the best in literature and art. Main Library Children’s Room staff introduces Ms. Johnson to the children, who are thrilled to meet a real “New York City” published author!

When she reads one of her poems from her book Sitting Pretty in the native dialect of the West Indies, the children are spellbound. She asks them if they know anyone who talks like that, and they exclaim, “That’s Jamaican!” or “My grandmother in Charleston talks like that.” We want the children to know Ms. Johnson grew up here in Columbia, and teaches at USC, but that she is so famous that children all over the U.S. read her books. She tells them of her trip to Africa, and shows them some of her over 200 dolls in her collection, on which Sitting Pretty is based.

They are surprised when she tells them her editor gave her a “thumbs down” on her initial idea of a story about her dolls. “Has your teacher ever told you that you need to fix or work on something you’ve written?” The children nod and roll their eyes. “Well, that’s what happened to me. But then I wrote poems about the dolls, and my editor liked them very much. And your teacher will help you be the very best writer you can be, and one way to be a great writer is to read a lot of books.”

Ms. Johnson’s t-shirt, (pictured left), spells “freedom” as “freadom” to tell the children that if they read every day, they will have the freedom to become whatever they want to become.

And here at RCPL, we feel exactly the same way. And we hope that, at least in some small part, we’re making sure children dream big, dream far, and read the whole way there.