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W four WN Radio. Hello, and welcome to Fearless Fabulous You. I am your host, Melanio And this is a beautiful October day, twenty twenty three. We are in the first week of October, which is a very big month in my life because it's Breast cancer Awareness Month, is mental health awareness, Suicide Awareness month. It's in the world of wine, it's the super Bowl of the wine world because everybody's finishing harvest and out selling wines.
And I'm heading to New York shortly. And it's also this week October one through seven, Mark's band Books Week. Let me just talk about this because I'm the daughter of two authors. I am an author I'm a passionate reader. I started reading as a young girl at h two, believe it or not, phonetically, and spend a lot of time in my local public library. Very proud of my library card. So get this. What are these
celebrated authors have in common? Ellen Hopkins a New York Times bestseller, Tony Morrison a Nobel Prize winner, John Green a Michael L. Prince Award winner and New York Times bestseller, and Sarah Moss Moss also a New York Times bestseller. This is just a few authors. Their books were among the top eleven most books of the twenty twenty two to twenty twenty three school year,
according to penn America. In fact, this organization reports that the number of public school bands across the country increased by thirty three percent in the twenty twenty two to twenty three school year compared to twenty twenty one twenty two. That's over three thousand books, three thousand and three hundred and sixty two books, accurately affecting one hundred and fifty one thousand, five hundred and fifty seven unique
titles. It impacts the work of one thousand, four hundred and eighty authors, illustrators, and translators. So it's not just about banning books. It's a banning freedom of speech, which is the First Amendment, and it's affecting people's livelihoods. So guess what state is now the number one state for book bans? Sunny Florida. Yeah, Sunny Florida has a very cloudy of impact on books and it now exceeds Texas for the most banned books in school.
Don't you ever wonder why in a nation where we have a constitution where the First Amendment protects freedom of speech, that we're banning books. That's censorship and the First Amendment doesn't. While it isn't very specific about freedom of speech, it basically guarantees the right to express that disent information on a basic level. That means you can express opinion, even if unpopular. But it protects all forms of communication, from speech to art to other media. Okay, this
is from the American Library Association, And I love librarians. Like I said, I spent my early and very formative years hanging out alone or with groups in libraries while my mother taught class and she was a communications specialist, and we all wrote books in my family and reread. And I'm a big believer that children need to be reading at an early age and reading from a booklist
that is diverse and expands their minds. So we're going to dress this today why reading is, as they say, fundamental, and why it needs to happen at an early age, and how we as concerned active women can make sure that freedom of speech is protected, that we have access to good books for children of all ages and adults, because this is just a children's thing. My guest is Kyle Zimmer. She is a co founder and key principle
for First Book. It's a Firstbook dot org. It's a nonprofit she created and co found in nineteen ninety two to help further equal access to quality education. And it is goal is well, she'll discuss it, but it is about getting books to more children in low income areas so they have the fundamental right to be able to read and read books that can be available to the of all topics. And I have other people deciding what you can and can't
read. So Kyle Zimmer, welcome to Fearless Fabulous. You thank you so much, Melanie. It's lovely to be here. I think your whole background is interesting each Obviously you can tell I'm passionate about this topic because I am an author, I am a reader, and I do believe highly education is the best form of getting people to be their best. You are actually come from the law background. You have a really amazing career, and you had
an AHA moment in nineteen eighty volunteering at a soup kitchen. Thank you for doing that in Washington, d C. What was that aha moment? Yeah, it was actually in the late, very late eighties, and it was I was a lawyer here in Washington, as you say, and I was, you know, and the town was under siege, the crack epidemic had hit, and violence was on the rise. And I was raised that you don't sit a fight like that out, that you roll your sleeves up and
you go help your hometown. So I as you as you indicated, I started reading with kids after work at a soup kitchen and really just wanted to be part of, you know, strengthening the community. But what I began to understand is that is how scarce books are in the lives of kids in need, obviously not just in Washington but nationwide, and and it you know,
it's obviously it turned into my whole life. Well, it's a it's a good luck to turn into because I've lived all over I lived in Washington, I think before the crowd was there in the early eighties, and I've lived in New York for many many years, lived in the rural South and the not so rural South, and I think, you know, my concern about I'm missing a linger on the band books thing now is that it seems
to be it is on the increase. The American Library Association documented one two hundred and sixty nine demands to censor library books and resources in twenty twenty two that there were that's like huge. It's also doubles the doubles the number of books reported in twenty twenty one. So we're seeing fairly large increases in censorship. And of those titles, the mass majority were written by members of the lgbt QIA community or about black people, indigenous and people of color. And
when I read I read, I went on pan America. I actually joined pen America recently because I was very thinking about this whole topic. Great organization, yeah it is, and you know they're doing great things, and you know it concerns me because it basically skews how we think we are not providing equal access to an open mind. Open mind to me, and open mind is an open book, is open to mind. Open a book, open to mind, and by shutting a book, you're closing a mind. And
it's clearly skewed. I was reading some of the titles, which are fairly well known, some of them so shocking, and it's everything from a curse word to a use of a drug to basically a sexual You know what's fairly scary about it is that a lot of these books reflect the reality of life. So, yeah, people are doing drugs, people are living in poverty, people are doing a lot of not great things right now, but they're also doing good things, but we're not allowing that to go on paper.
And a lot of these books reflect our therapeutic memoirs that people are writing to share their life and how they came out of it. So what are your thoughts on all this? Well, I think you know, let me say right up front, I am a parent and I have two great young men who are my sons, and I recognize and honor a parent's right to oversee what their kids are reading and doing. Of course, but where that right ends is when it intersects with other people's rights to oversee their children and what
they're reading and doing. And so for me, at the sort of fundamental level, you know, I think that book bands limit parental rights because it's a small number of parents making making decisions for the entire school or the entire community in the case of the library. And that is patently wrong, you know, and flies in the face as you rightly reported the First Amendment.
This is not how this country was formed. And and frankly, when you look back over human history, the people who have book bands are not censorship or either of those. They're not new. This is not a new thing. But every time there's a group of people that takes up that particular banner, they are never on the side of elevating humanity and of equal access to
education, to quality education, and equal opportunity. It's never that's never hand in glove with a book ban So I think for a lot of reasons, fundamentally, it goes against who we are as a country and who we want to be, you know. So I'm with you, heart and soul, Melanie. It's interesting my mother, when she was bedridden and dying, asked me to order she read book. I mean, I come from a seriously big reading family. One hundreds and hundreds of books here that I've got to
now donate. And I'm holding my hand mouse Art Spiegelman's Mouse, which is about the Holocaust. Okay, you know, because there are people who don't want that books about the Holocaust, and one movies because I don't want to. And you know, it's messy, it's dirty, it's awful, but it happens. Life is messy, right, It certainly is. It certainly is. And and you know, one one thing, if I may, I think there's uh, there's part of this narrative that is that that is
false. It becomes a false narrative, and that is that there's pornography. You know, that word is thrown around and that's just not true. Like you can you know, there is no there is no responsible adult who is suggesting that pornography is appropriate for children. There's no one responsible who's saying that.
And so, but that's one of the sort of Molotov cocktail words that gets thrown into this debate even though it doesn't apply, it's not real, but it shuts down the debate, and I think we have to be strong and vocal on our side of this conversation to say, of course pornography is not appropriate for kids, but what you determine is over a line does not make it pornographic, and that kids and their families and very highly trained,
committed educators, that's who should be involved in this discussion. That's who should be driving it. And so I do think we have to get better as individuals in stepping up and calling it out, because I think we've all been to quiet and thinking that, well, it's just a small number of people or a small number of communities. And I've got some research that we've performed that I want to share with you and your listeners because I think it speaks
very much to to you know, to this set of issues. Sure Ted, I'd love to hear about it. Sure What. We ran to two studies, and we really spent a lot of time and consideration on this, because you know, the debate often is may I just say fact free, you know when you're listening to advocates of book bands, and so we really wanted to inject actual data of what's going on in classrooms, and so in one study that we released just recently at Clinton Global Initiative two weeks ago is
a six month nationwide pilot study where we identified four hundred and fifty classrooms and we infused those classrooms with very high quality, diverse children's books, and then we sat back and watched what happened for those kids, and the results are very, very compelling. What we learned is that the collectively the number of hours that kids spent reading in those classroom rooms jumped up by four hours per week, and their academics improved. In fact, the classrooms we studied,
the average reading scores jumped up by three percent over nationally expected averages. And so what we see, even during a six month window is that kids are more engaged in reading, their academics are beginning to show an upward turn, you know. And this is in a country where we have you know, fourth graders who are African American, Latino and Native who are eighty four percent non proficient in their reading. It's the line goes between eighty percent and eighty
four percent. This is a five alarm fire. We should be using every tool we have to engage kids in reading to capture their me imagination it's critical to them, to our communities, to our democracy, and our economy. So you can tell I'm just as passionate as you are about these things. I feel like we, each one of us has a critical stake in the future of this absolutely. And you know it's funny. Parents will allow their kids to be on social media and way too much social media, and I
think that's also impacting quality reading time. There should be more reading and discussion time in schools and around the table, but that doesn't seem to be happening because we've all been to I'm not a parent, but I've been to plenty of dinner parties where I see the kids just like you know, bowed down, their postures, already disappearing over their their iPhones or whatever their mobile phone
is. You see it everywhere, and it's like, I get my heart warms when I travel, and I travel a lot and I see a child holding a book. I'll tell you something interesting, Kyle. I travel to Europe a lot, and I and to rule like wine areas, and I've seen more children. Sometimes the parents will bring their children with them because you know, there's not childcare, and the kids will be reading books interesting and I'm wondering, and I don't know, but I would be curious to find
out where the United States sits. I know, I know overall adult literacy is very high in the United States, souse. I was reading up before the show. But I'm curious how we compared to other countries in terms of promoting and nurturing reading among children. You know, I don't know that I have the answer for you on that, on the comparative analysis. It is a fascinating question. Oh, because also it translates into productivity down the road.
So I'm curious about that. So you co founded first book, and i'd love to know you talked about your research study, talk about some of the other initiatives that you have been doing since the founding. And I mean this is like twenty years. Well, no, it's that's what he is, like forty years. We just are in our thirty second year. I'm amazed to report and we've done a lot of great work. Only you know
what we it's a five. It's a nonprofit social enterprise, which means that it's a nonprofit and we steal some strategies from the for profit side of the universe to make sure that our work is efficient and as effective as it possibly can be, and we we really look at our work. The centerpiece is listening. It's listening. We have a community, an online community of over five hundred and seventy five thousand members. These are educators in Title I schools,
they are or Title one eligible schools. They're in preschools and after schools and healthcare settings and libraries and homeless shelters in every imaginable place. Because we believe that educational equity requires three hundred and sixty degree surround sound for kids, and we want to be supporting existing organizations in communities all over the country. So this community is the largest of its kind of adults in the lives of
kids in need. It's the largest in North America. And we really listen to what they need, what they're worried about, what's keeping them up at night, and responding to that. We have built three major pillars. One is called First Book Research and Insights, and it's our research arm and the study I just described to you about the impact of diverse books in the classroom
that's a product of First Book Research and Insights. We do about twenty studies a year and for a huge range of topics also to guide our work and make sure that our work is effective and that it's we're doing as much as
we possibly can. The second is called the Accelerator, the First Book Accelerator, and it's a program where as we hear from our community that, for example, they do not feel trained in mental health issues, and you know, post COVID, all of us are aware that kids are struggling with mental health issues, and educators that's not usually part of their fundamental training when they're
getting their degree. So we recognize that we listen to them, and through the Accelerator, we reach outside x who are really the thought leaders in those critical topics, and we build resources and connections between our community and these thought leaders to make sure that they're getting as much as we can give them the on the challenges they have. The third pillar is called the First Book Marketplace and it's a nonprofit e commerce site. We are we move fifteen sixteen million
books annually through this site. They are either for free or they're at very low cost. In addition to in addition to books, we do ebooks. Of course, we do backpacks and art supplies and you know, all kinds of things that we make available for free or at the lowest possible cost. And that's sort of a flyover of all of our programs. I think that's great, you know, I wish you know it. It starts obviously with the parenting and encouraging reading, which the parents don't read, the kids are
not going to read. Here's a problem. And then obviously in in in schools we're reading was you know essential, I mean that was part of what you learned or I mean when I was at school, reading was a big deal. I don't know what it's like now because everybody's a computers, but I, you know, love computers and whatnot. But I still love the smell and feel of a library book. You know, whenever I get I
get pitched books all the time. Here's here's the PDIA And I'm like, you know what, I don't enjoy sitting in my bed with my computer reading a book. That just doesn't work with me. I have to hold a book and hit the feel and writing, and I like to tag the pages and you know, and you know, I feel that we had newspapers too, even though it has seemed to have any But I think it's so important to not give up on certain things. It also hurts authors and it's noted,
it hurts illustrated. I mean there's a whole industry behind it that gets impacted with bank books. It's really quite And the sad thing is the banned books are all as I said, you know, they're all topics that are They're all topics that you can find on Netflix and many come in streaming channels. Yeah yeah, yeah. As I think about it, I mean I get scarier. You know, there's fair issues more available in other areas,
including social media. So we're taking something that really is in a better place to learn and putting it aside. And I'm amazed by it, because who are we to be, you know. I mean it's true parents can just you know, have a say in their children's lives. But this is about public opinion and community and and and banning things that should be available to all. Uh. And that's a problem, and it's a big, it's a scary problem, and I think we need to underscore this isn't this isn't about
politics. This is about That's right. I think that's really important. Some people go all your you know, it's not about politics, everybody, It's about common sense and freedom of speech and education. And you know, Melanie, if I made the uh, there's one group of people who on your list of people to worry about. In addition to authors and illustrators and others,
UH is teachers and first book. Just yesterday we first Book Research and Insights, we released a second study that was a survey of fifteen hundred educators and we asked them, in part, how do you know, how do you feel about book bands and what impact are they having on your teaching, on your profession, on your you know, on the kids in your classroom.
And while only one third of them of the respondents said that there were book bands in their districts, seventy one person of them said that they feel that book banning undermines their expertise and makes them feel distrusted and increases their stress.
So that means that the splash effect, the chilling effects of this kind of message, this kind of movement, if you will, on book banning, it is undercutting our kids because as I said, the earlier study showed that that you know is a power tool for children, but it's also undercutting the teachers who are dedicated, underpaid, and who are it's already a profession that's in crisis, and we're one more time throwing something like this at them. It's a big distraction. It's not good. Yeah, you know,
the teachers. You know, I've always felt that every high paid CEO should be tithing a percentage of his high paid salary to teachers. Don't get me started on billionaires who spend all their money going to the moon, sending rockets to the moon when they need to deal with situations on Earth. You know, I don't get it. I'll never get it. I don't have to
say it, and I mean my voices are very swallowing. Called vote but doesn't really matter because these are billionaires and they seem to do whatever they want. But we should be supporting public education, all education, but specific public education, but teachers. You know, I'm constantly amazed, Kyle when I hear that teachers are buying supplies out of their own pocket. I how about
that? Yeah? Yeah, I live in I now live in I lived in New York for many years city and I live in Chattanooga, Tennessee. As I said, my mother was a longtime educator and we have she died and we have lots of things Tozoni, and I'm donating a lot of stuff to the Hamilton County Schools because, you know, anything I can to help them, and I have. I've been blessed with large collection of books, and it's so funny. There's a little pub, there's one of those little
those little library you neighborhood libraries. I go with an armload of books and stock it. Every time I try to work out. My husband's like, really it's empty. I'm gonna go pull some more books because I'm swimming for books. It's tabulous, so that means people are picking them up and reading them. Yeah, I'm a big supporter of those little I love big libraries. I don't neighborhood wines. You know. Yeah, yes, it's like
so, you know, this is a great enterprise. What can people who are listening most of my audiences women, They may or man you mothers, but they're women, and women have a powerful voice now in this country. What can we all be doing to move the dial forward on this topic? Well, I think there are a number of things. Uh. First of all, I think we all and I am including myself in this, we
need to collectively get up off our couches and make our voices heard. And I think, you know, I think people are hesitant because they don't want to be part of a fistfight, you know, in front of the board of education or whatever. But this is what happens in schools. And I've poked around on this and I know it to be true. Principles for example,
or school board. People they hear from let's say five or ten people who are adamant about book bands promoting book bands, and they do not hear from the other side of the ledger are they don't hear, And so they're standing there with ten phone calls on one side of the balance and dead silence on the other. And that is a problem because the loudest voice in this case, the only voice, is going to be the one that takes the
day. And you don't have to have a kid in the school. You don't have to like you can call the principle, you can call the board of education, folks, and whoever the authorities are up the line, and each you know, districts are organized in different ways, and just say I want to lob in, I want to register that I live in your area. I oppose book bands, And because I know that these books are critical for our children. It's critical for them to see themselves, it's critical for
them to see others. And that's about all you have to say. But I think we collectively need to act and we need our voices to be heard. So that's one. Secondly, if I can promote First Book for a minute. We as proud as I am of having over five hundred and seventy
five thousand educators signed up with us. It's not nearly an enough. So if any of your listeners, excuse me, if any of your listeners have people in their lives who are teachers or involved in public schools that are Title one or Title one eligible, or they're volunteering perhaps through their church in a homeless shelter or in a soup kitchen or anything like that, please ask them to get those organizations signed up with us. It's free, there is no
obligation, and it takes about seven minutes online to sign up. And so because the bigger we are, the more we can bring that market strength and lower the cost of the great books that we're talking about. And you can find us at firstbook dotorg. That's great. You know, let's face it, words matter, whether you speak them, write them. And you know, not taking action and not listening and not speaking up is a powerful statement
right there. You know, it's really important if you feel something or see something, say something, and I want to you know, I mentioned that, you know, Florida is out passed Texas as book band, but this is not just about Florida and Texas. And again it's not about politics.
I'm living in tennis. It's every state. So I'm living in Tennessee now and the Tennessee and Nashville, Tennessee and reported in July that in Tennessee there's about five hundred band books, so it's across the nation and they tend to be similar in in topics, basically anything that's perceived as going against conventional norm, which is like a lot of things, because we are also supposed to be promoting being yourself and being an individual. But you know, unfortunately some
people they can't share that. It's so interesting, Kyle. I've had this show now for it's ten years, okay, and I've interviewed a lot of authors who have shared gripping, frightening stories about their lives in books ranging from sexual abuse to suicide attempts to recovering from drug use to you name it, and they the books have by writing what they went through, they have become stronger people and it helps with other people going through similar situations who are not
ready to speak up. So, you know, books are so important for children to opening their minds but also developing language skills. Yeah, and we are sadly. My mother was a speech of communications specialist and language skills. She bemoaned the fact that language skills are worse than ever now and I think we forget how important the ability to speak and communicate is and how books can
really make that happen and further that in a very positive way. Well, I think it's also important, and I'm sure that you agree with this, that people who kids who are not from those cultures, or people who've been fortunate enough not to have catastrophic life experiences. You know, I think it's it's critically important because it gives us that window into another person's experience, another person's race or culture or just life, you know, life tragedies in some
cases. And I think sometimes we as a country, we when we can divide a problem into a US versus them, we're never very good at solving
those very quickly, you know. And in this case, some of the narrative I have seen has been sort of people suggesting that this that Latia I'm making up an example, Latino authors are important only for Latino kids, and they are certainly important for Latino kids, of course they are, yes, yes, But the truth is is that any child from any ethnic background, from any financial background, who grows up without being exposed to other people's lives,
other people's cultures, they are going to be at a huge disadvantage when they step out onto the grander stage because our country and our world is getting dramatically more diverse in experience and in culture and ability and everything else. And imagine if you have no connection to any of that and you are trying to start your life as a young person, that's a huge disadvantage. So I desperately want those diverse books in the hands of kids who are who have been
underrepresented, so they can see their cultures and their families. Of course, but oh my goodness, we all need to be more empathetic, We need to be more graceful with each other, and this is a prime way for us to share those experiences. Absolutely, and I think these are such important points. So, Kyle, you're doing some great work. You know, we have a little bit of time left. I have three questions. One, what was the first book you read as a child that really resonated with
you? Isn't that such a great question? You know, I distinctly I was lucky like you to have a lot of books in my home growing up, and I spent a big chunk of my childhood on the linoleum floor in the public library. Like you, I very distinctly remember reading The Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, the original one, the big thick one, and I was determined to go page by page when I was quite little on that and
I still have that copy. Oh you know what, I'm so endeared by that, Kyle, because I'm moved into my mother's house to care for and I'm sleeping in my childhood bedroom still, and the only books I kept after we had to pack up hundreds of books are all my Winny the Poos. I have my original Winnyo. And because I believe everybody is a character in Pooh, my husband is Quary for Robin, and I think I'm big Litter, the wise old owl, but I think everybody is a character Winny the
Pooh. I think it's a seminal books. The other ones I have or not is when I was six, I found that and all my Mary Poppin's books and My Wizard of Oz, which The Wizard of Oz is the book that probably has affected me more than any other book in life. Fabulous. Yeah, because when I wrote my book on getting through cancer, it was basically envisioned by the Wizard of Oz Waiting to get out of You know, why do I go back to Kansas as an adult? What are you reading
that is exciting you? You know, I read. I'm kind of all over the map with my reading. I just finished a book about the history of Ireland called We Didn't Know Ourselves and it was the history of Ireland from like nineteen fifty to present, and that was stunning. My family has deep Virush roots, so I was interested in that. And I'll tell you I reread The Good Earth by Pearl recently, and I have a great copy of that book. It's always been one of my favorites, and I reread it
and it's a wonderful thing to do. Because, of course, at sixty two, I have a very different slant on the way that book plays in my mind than I did when I was nineteen, So it's kind of fun to go back to those stories. For me, I think we're reading is important. I have that book in this library in my office. The book that when I became older, I was still in high school, but that's still resonated with me and I actually talked about on last week's show was Iron
Rand's The Virtue of Selfishness. Also The Fountainhead, which resonated with me even today when I created Envision this show and Fearless Fabulous you about how individuality is so important versus conventionality, and that being selfish is not a bad thing because you need to tell of yourself and your self care. So those books stay with me forever. And Your Erroneous Zones by doctor Dwayne Weyer, you know, sometimes you go back and reread them. But I do encourage everybody listening
to if you have childhood books, go back and read them. When my mother died, I referenced The Giving Tree. Oh uh huh, another book that I reread frequently because it's such a learning lesson in there about giving but you know, taking and giving. So I think everybody needs to go back and reread certain books at different stages of your life. It's very interesting. Absolutely, well, we're at the end of the show. It's really been
a pleasure. Again. We've been talking with Kyle Zimmer. The organization is firstbook dot org and you can get involved by visiting that website. There's no cost. But what you're doing is you're supporting the fundamentals of freedom of speech, literacy, education and opening people's minds because, as I say, read my lips, open a book and you'll open a mind and start young with
children because it stays with you forever. Kyle and I just talked about books that we were reading as children, as young girls that still resonate with us. Reading is such an important form of education, communication, enlightenment and helping people grow. So we need to nurture that and make sure that we protect those rights. Yeah always, Kyle, thank you so much for joining me. Kyle Zimmer, first book on Fearless fabulous you thank you so much.
Melanie, what a wonderful time. Well, I think it's such an important topic and for all of you listening, go get a library card. They're free, and sit down and curl up and read a book and do it and encourage your kids as well, because you will find peace and calm and relaxation. And it's better than just constantly clicking and clicking and streaming and scrolling. It really is. I do it all the time away from everything to
relax. You've been listening to another edition of Fearless Fabulous You as usual. My message is that you have the choice in life to live how you want and not live by other people's terms. Choose life on your terms and choose fearless and fabulous, and do it in a way that helps lift others up with you. Thank you. I'm Melanie Young, follow me, I'm Melanie Fabulous. And you can listen to this show on your favorite podcast platform,
including all the ones that are huge like iHeart Spotify, Apple. So do it and share it and thank you and thank you again, Kyle. Thanks so much they had with the Fam.