Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:00:00]:
Welcome advocates to another episode of the Lead in Equity podcast. A podcast that focuses on supporting educators with the tools and resources necessary to ensure equity at their schools. Today's special guest is Judy Newman. So without further ado, Judy, thank you so much for joining us today.

Judy Newman [00:00:18]:
Thank you so much. I'm so happy to be here.

Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:00:20]:
Pleasure's all mine. I'm really excited for today's topic. But before we get into today's topic, I'd love for you to share a little bit about yourself and what you currently do.

Judy Newman [00:00:27]:
Yeah. Well, thank you again for having me. My name is Judy Newman, and I am a Scholastic chief impact officer. And, friends and family members are like, what's a chief impact officer? So I'm gonna tell you, but I've been at the company since 1993, and I've had a lot of jobs there. The biggest one was running the book clubs division where the kids choose the books through their classroom teachers, and they get books that they love to read for fun. And so now I am taking that work and that history and everything I know about that and trying to make sure that all kids, particularly kids who live in marginalized communities or live in poverty, who do not have access to choose and own their own books, are able to do that.

Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:01:11]:
Alright. Well, good. Good. Good. I'm excited for today because and I've been thinking that I I got excited when I came across this topic and and and was introduced to you because I have a 12 year old son, and I I can't get him to voluntarily read. Okay? Now when he was younger, we used to throw all kind of books at him. He would read books. But nowadays, all I see him on is on his device.

Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:01:35]:
He's he's doing Roblox all the day, all the time. I'm spending money on Roblox just just wearing my pockets out. I'd love to get them back into the book side of things. So, I just kinda wanna get your take starting off. Just what are some of the trends that you're seeing from your end as far as students and kids wanting to read and and sit down and have a book in their hand?

Judy Newman [00:01:55]:
Yeah. Well, first of all, as a parent, I can tell you that my kids were this had the same problem. You know, they started out reading, completely immersed in books. And then, you know, really, when they hit sort of middle school, like that 12 year old and you got a lot on your mind when you're 12 years old, you know, from your own experience. And so they'll come back to it. I bet he'll be back to it a little bit later on. So keep the faith. But Yeah.

Judy Newman [00:02:18]:
I think that there's a lot of challenges. I mean, people say kids don't read. They do screens. They go to digital, of course. And we have, you know, statistics that say that, you know, something like, I don't know, 30% or very few fourteen percent of kids are reading for fun, for recreation, you know, just to have a good time. And I've you know, I'm preparing a a keynote speech, which I've never done before in my entire life, to 500 school board administrators and school board members in Mississippi. So I'm really thinking about this, like, trying to explain it to people who don't live in this world every day. And I think that digital appeal, Roblox or whatever, is, of course, it's easier sort of to look in a screen.

Judy Newman [00:03:01]:
But I think these streaming services, you know, either our music and our movies and our games and our TV, it's so customized. So you can like horror or you can like funny things or you can like Bluey if you're a little kid or you can like whatever programs or games or music you want. But with books, we do not have the facility to make sure that we're connecting kids to the books that they wanna read. And so, you know, kids are supposed to be sort of grateful. Oh, I got a book. What are the chances that that's gonna be a good book that's gonna excite them as much as, you know, Roblox, for example, syncs up with your your your son's ideas and and interests? So my friend James Patterson, who's a big author, he always says there's no such thing as a kid who doesn't like to read. It's just a kid who hasn't found the red book. And I think that the the digital services are much better at customizing, and that's what we really have to work on to make sure kids have books they wanna read, that they choose to read.

Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:03:58]:
Alright. Well, let's let's talk about that. Tell me a little again, I'm I'm talking to you as a dad now.

Judy Newman [00:04:02]:
Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:04:03]:
And folks are listening. What are some of the digital services that I should be looking into? How does it work? Should I should should it be an app that I had to tell my son to add to his his phone? Like, what are some of the things that I should be looking into?

Judy Newman [00:04:16]:
Well, I'm a big believer still that kids should read print books, physical books, because I think there's a lot to that. Okay? What I mean about the digital services as a comparison is just that we're competing with digital programs and digital products. And so they're sort of eating our lunch in terms of the digital ability to get the right prod the right program, the right product for the kids. So I'm just saying for physical books, we have to work on doing that just as well. And so how do you do that? Like, how do you give physical book choices to kids? And and how do they learn how to choose? So how do my belief in my work through my entire career has we have to bring the teacher and the family, the caregiver, and the child all together at the same time. And because if we're sort of peeling one or the other off, it's gonna be it's not gonna work. And so, you know, teachers are big helpers. They know what kids can read.

Judy Newman [00:05:09]:
They know what kids like. They have a sense of their reading proficiency. Because the other problem is if you give a kid a book that's much too hard for them or much too easy for them, that's not a match either. And so it's easy to sort of throw that away. So I think we have to be much more mindful and respectful of the child really about what book is going to be right for them and not just show up and say, hey, be a reader. That's not fair. It's not fair to a kid. So that's what we're working on.

Judy Newman [00:05:36]:
Programming that happens, starts in the classroom, enables kids to choose books, books that they like, books that are interesting and supports their curriculum. Because, you know, there's a lot of discussion about what's the best way to teach kids reading. I don't care. Whatever works, science of reading or whatever system works is great for by me. But once they learn how to read, they have to practice their reading with books that motivate them to read.

Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:06:01]:
Okay. Okay. So let's just say alright. So maybe not necessarily the digital. You're you're you're more on the old school side of things. Like, let's put that book in hand. I'm more that way too because I like to highlight. I like, you know, what do you call it? Rabbit ear, the the the bottom where I left off, bookmark, and all that kind of stuff.

Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:06:16]:
So I get them. I that's how I came up. So maybe not necessarily the digital side of things. I guess the question then would be because you mentioned the reading level. Like, maybe is is it too easy? Is it too hard? Do you recommend maybe educators look at a Lexile score, see where students are at reading wise, and then maybe physically recommend here's a set of books that you might be interested in or maybe put it in like, how do you suggest that so so that we can make sure that they're reading at the right level that's that's challenging, still stimulating their their interest, and those kind of things?

Judy Newman [00:06:51]:
Yeah. I think choice is my top the top for me. So if the kids choose the book, they're interested in it, you know, graphic novels are all the rage now in middle school, you know, for older kids, Dog Man, Captain Underpants, all kinds of things. And if a kid's interested in that and maybe they can't read every word, vocabulary word, but they get it through the pictures, like, that's great. You know, every year at Halloween for, like, thirty, twenty years, I give out books instead of candy. And we have hundreds and hundreds of kids come every year. They come from I live in Montclair, New Jersey. They come from Newark.

Judy Newman [00:07:24]:
They come from all over, and they line up. It's like a crazy festival every Halloween. And so the kids line up and, you know, I'm very I get very obsessive about, you know, having a wide range of books to kids for kids to choose from. But, you know, the kids, like, really wants that Barbie book or really wants that, you know, picture book, and the parents are like, tell the book lady, which is, you know, my new

Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:07:45]:
They call you a

Judy Newman [00:07:45]:
book lady. Yeah. They call me the book lady. Tell the book lady that you read at a higher grade level. I'm like, oh, please, you know, stop. You know, let the kid choose the book that they are gonna be motivated to read, that they can take home, you know, that they can put on their shelf, that they can be proud of. You know, it's not a competition and you're not impressing me. So I think choice and interest and, you know, w what we do not have in the publishing industry is enough nonfiction particularly well, for all kinds of readers, but, you know, historically for boys.

Judy Newman [00:08:16]:
We need a lot of nonfiction, and, we have a series that we created called who would win, which are all over the schools probably. You probably have them in your own school. And they pit you know, they are competitions between, you know, a great white whale, great white shark, and a hammerhead shark. And and there's facts in there, and the kids learn to make their decisions. And so very highly illustrated. So nonfiction is a very important way for kids to get acclimated to books and things that they're interested in. So we just have to focus on let the kids pick. I mean, you know, you yourself, you don't wanna read a book that someone's forced them to read.

Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:08:51]:
Okay.

Judy Newman [00:08:52]:
You're not interested in. So why should kids be different? So I say let's respect the choice and that and we know from so much data, the Scholastic Kids and Family Reading Report and all this other data, that when kids choose, those are the books they read.

Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:09:05]:
Okay. Alright. So fair enough. I'm not an ELA teacher, so it's all good stuff.

Judy Newman [00:09:10]:
Well, I could tell you when my son was 12. I could we couldn't get him to eat either. So we just kept he's he fishes. He's a fly fisherman. And so we just kept finding books. There was a great book called Joe and Me about a fly fisherman, and we just put it on. You know, he he went in there, and then he started to build it back up. So, anyway

Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:09:27]:
So so it's so it's okay. So I like the idea of choice. So, say, let let the kids choose what they want. However, I would assume that part of our job would be to put those books in front of them. Yes. Maybe care carefully curating a selection, different genres, different characters, whatever. Like you said, nonfiction fiction, those kind of things, putting that in front of them. So do you recommend at all levels, k 12, early childhood, whatever, that we have an area where there's books outside of just the school library?

Judy Newman [00:10:01]:
Yes. Yes. Yes. And yes. I mean, what what we're doing right now is we're launching a program called The United States of Readers, which is essentially those flyer, you know, you got as a kid. And, they're filled with books that are, as you say, curated by grade, by age, by they look like this. And they're the best books. And, of course, you need expert editorial curation in order for books to make sense to kids.

Judy Newman [00:10:25]:
And, five times a year, every kid chooses two books. There's no prices on these flyers. And then it's done in the classroom. Every single child participates equally, and every single kid in the school participates equally. So we avoid some of those awful feelings with some of these programs where, you know, some kids can't participate and that just creates yet another negative drag on reading. So, yeah, we need curation. We need, you know, fun. Any anybody who's bringing together a collection for people to choose, you know, it's gotta be the fun new stuff and the old classics and all kinds of genre to your point and meeting levels.

Judy Newman [00:11:02]:
And without price in the mix and with everybody included, completely inclusive, then you have a wonderful experience. And the teachers feel good because, you know, you're in it. You're a principal. I mean, you know, teachers use a lot of their own household money to buy books for their kids, to put, you know, for supplies for their classroom, which is, like, ridiculous. So if this takes the pressure off the teachers, they also get 25 books for their classroom library in this program. And, you know, it's morale boosting for teachers who, you know, need morale boosting right now because there's a lot of pressure on these teachers and in the schools that we're, that we're thinking about, you know, we're thinking about 10,000,000 kids in this country who live in book deserts, really. They don't have access to books. And that's the issue.

Judy Newman [00:11:48]:
You know, the the kids who have more affluence, who have more access, you know, they'll be okay. They might not be interesting people to talk to, but they'll be okay because they'll have other supports in their life. Yeah. But if you can't read and you're in a very well supported community, you know, you're screwed, frankly. And that's not okay.

Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:12:07]:
So it's called The United say it one more time.

Judy Newman [00:12:09]:
Yeah. The United States of Readers.

Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:12:11]:
Okay. United States. Is that available for just North North America? Is it international?

Judy Newman [00:12:18]:
It's not international yet. Our goal is to reach we did a pilot. 50,000 kids in every single state in the country. Because that's the other thing that we're determined is to have a transcendent thing where we're not caught up in political, you know, debate over kid you know, kids end up being collateral damage over this. So there's books for all. There's opportunities for families, you know, to to support whatever their kids want. We would never force a book on anybody. The books are all well vetted, well well curated.

Judy Newman [00:12:49]:
And so it's all kids and we're rolling. Our goal is 10,000,000 kids. We've been named a big bet for America by the Rockefeller Foundation. And I think what I'm seeing now, because I've been in the trenches in this work a long time, I think we're seeing people are fed up. You know, the reading proficiency scores are declining. They've been declining for decades. I have an MBA and a publishing experience for decades. But when I started doing this work and talking to educators, even like yourself, like, I had imposter syndrome.

Judy Newman [00:13:18]:
So I'm like, who am I? I'm not an educator. My mom was a teacher, but, you know, I I never been in the classroom. So I went back to grad school to get a master's of education because I even though that's not the same as actually being in a classroom, I wanted to surround myself with educators. And so I did that. My husband's like, what are you doing? But, and so I really started to understand the challenges, you know, that are out there, but we're seeing a shift. I think people are set up with the declines. People with resources are willing to listen to a new approach, and that's what we're trying to bring forward.

Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:13:52]:
Alright. Well, folks, links in the show notes. Educators out there, if you're looking for this resource, make sure you you look at those links there and see if these this is something that that you Is there, like, a qualification eligibility in order to be a part of this?

Judy Newman [00:14:07]:
Well, we're raising money right now. So we're in Massachusetts. We got funding from the state. We got money from some nonprofits in Florida, so we're we're building save the children, which is a huge organization. I'm sure, you know, working with us there, to get a million kids, the program in rural poverty, rural poverty in 14, mostly Southern States where they are. And so they're going to raise money. It's a lot of private philanthropy. My goal is, you know, like free and reduced lunch was a was a federally funded program because kids need to eat.

Judy Newman [00:14:37]:
That's not up for discussion. Similarly, they need to be able to read. And and we're about collective acts and because there's a lot of people doing wonderful work out there. Lot of small organizations, nonprofits, literacy advocates, and so on. So I don't wanna reinvent the wheel. I just wanna give everybody the opportunity to scale, to help scale. So

Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:14:57]:
Okay. I like this. Alright. Like I said, links in the show notes, folks. So that way, if you wanna learn more or support in any kind of way that you can help, this this sounds like a really good project that that's that you're working on. So I'm glad that you're doing this.

Judy Newman [00:15:11]:
Yeah. It's inspiring at this stage of the game, you know, and we have so much experience. So it's thrilling, actually. And when when the kids get the books, you know, they're they're loving them and we're hearing the reports and where all that data I know data is really important and so we're tracking and measuring and it's it's wonderful to see. It's very thrilling. And the authors get involved and anyway. Sorry. Okay.

Judy Newman [00:15:34]:
I get I get carried away.

Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:15:38]:
I didn't mean to cut you off, but I No.

Judy Newman [00:15:40]:
No. I do

Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:15:41]:
I do love the passion, and, again, I think that's amazing work that is being done. I I wanna switch back a little bit for a second because I'm still thinking about ways that teachers can educators and parents can kinda spark that, hey. Books are great. You should you should take some time to do some reading outside of being forced.

Judy Newman [00:16:01]:
Yeah.

Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:16:02]:
We we've we've kinda established that, like, as far as the choice side of things. What is maybe some recommendation that you might have for, like, maybe even just down to helping students kinda decide on what genres they're into?

Judy Newman [00:16:16]:
Yeah. Well, I think read alouds, you know, there's no time in the classroom right now, so teachers are really strapped for time. But if there's a little bit of time to do a read aloud, you know, a teacher reading in front of a class can really motivate kids to want that book. There's all kinds of author videos and so on we can share. I think they're under known, not well known enough and underutilized. But, you know, having a good classroom library with a wide range of books in them of the kids can, you know, explore and look at, of course, is the you know, is a great idea because they're in class. I mean, they're in the class and the books are right there. So I think, you know, also giving kids permission to start a book and not finish it.

Judy Newman [00:16:55]:
In my day, we always thought we had to finish a book, like, why? So if you don't like it, you know, put it down and pick up another one. Sharing books with friends, with other kids. I always love the coolest kid in the class strategy. You know, there's that one kid that just leads everybody. So if you can coop that person and and make them an ally, you know, and and kinda sharing or even doing read alouds. Like, there's all kinds of tips and tricks you can do. I know you're all about practical, real things educators can do to move the needle and and change equity and change things. And I I say the same approach.

Judy Newman [00:17:28]:
You know, there's real basic stuff that you can do, you know, and and getting kids' books and and, being respectful of the child. So really listening and seeing the kid. You know, the kid's really into football, you know, give them a football blocker and let them speak about it. I think

Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:17:43]:
so. I think I heard this, but I want to make sure this is what I heard. It sounded like you said that it's okay for students not to finish a book.

Judy Newman [00:17:52]:
Yes.

Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:17:53]:
That just goes against everything I've I've that's that's not how I grew up. I think about accelerated reading programs and how you had to finish the books in order to get the test and do like, there's is that what I heard you say? It's like, it's okay to not Yeah.

Judy Newman [00:18:08]:
Book. I mean, for if you're in a, you know, a curricular book that you have to finish as part of a class assignment, that's one thing. But books are pleasure reading to motivate you to read. If you started and it's awful, why how is making a kid finish that gonna ever make them a reader? So I say put it down as long as you pick up another book. As long as you're trying the next thing, find a book that you like that's gonna motivate you to read.

Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:18:33]:
I love this. It just kinda made me think about, like, all the times I've watched, like, try to watch a show on, like, a Netflix or somewhere. And I get two episodes in. I'm like, man, this this show sucks.

Judy Newman [00:18:44]:
Right. Exactly. And what do you do? You stop and you go to something else and it's free because you have your Netflix subscription, so there's very low stakes. That's the problem with the book. It's like a big thing. First of all, if you buy a book, if you have access to it, they're expensive. And so, it's a big decision to and then you don't like it, you don't wanna read it, that's a that's a problem. So Netflix, music, Spotify, whatever your music, you know, you listen it's exactly what you're saying.

Judy Newman [00:19:09]:
You listen to something, you don't like it, you go to something else. We need to create that same comfort, that same facility with meeting.

Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:19:15]:
Okay. Okay. Yeah. That I mean, it makes sense.

Judy Newman [00:19:18]:
Yeah.

Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:19:18]:
That's not something I've ever thought about out loud, I guess. So educated, if you take one thing from today's conversation, make sure that you consider I just think about so much, like, again, how I was brought up. Like, I I still struggle. Like, if I have a plate of food, I still struggle with not finishing it. I'm full, but I was raised no clean plate club, finish your food. So it's like I was brought up in a era where it's like you have to finish everything.

Judy Newman [00:19:46]:
Me too. I always said like, okay. I would send the food

Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:19:48]:
to the kids, you know, or don't give

Judy Newman [00:19:50]:
me so much in the first place. I don't know. No. But it's not yeah. I mean, reading is hard. We have to think about it differently. Otherwise, we're just gonna keep failing. And I don't know if you're gonna ask me this question, but I wanna answer it so I can jump in on myself.

Judy Newman [00:20:04]:
But, you know, we have to be realistic about what caregivers and families can do to support their kids' literacy. When we sit in these conference rooms and we create parent materials, you know, going on nature walks with your I've never in my entire life gone on a nature walk about literacy. Like, what does that mean? Now sometimes they have these new story walks for little kids, which is great. But, you know, parent materials and I'm I'm looking at them really carefully. They're very complicated. There's a lot of text. If you're a family who isn't, you know, comfortable with literacy yourself, maybe it's not, you know, English isn't your first language or potentially you're not even literate in your own language. You may have a confusing feeling about teachers and schools because of your own experience.

Judy Newman [00:20:46]:
You know, we hear this a lot. Again, we have to be respectful of these families and what they're expecting them to be able to do. And if you're getting a book and you're saying read with your child and, you know, that's not comfortable, that's not gonna work. And it's gonna make everyone feel bad. And I think, you know, I have a lot of psychology people in my family and, you know, you can see the psychology of how a kid would sort of shun that if it's gonna make the parents or family members feel bad. So I think we have to be hyper respectful of what caregivers can actually contribute to literacy and create books that they can read, that they feel comfortable or pictures, you know, they can fake it, that it's they're not gonna feel awful about it. And I'm on a crusade for that because I'm looking at these parent materials and it's like not who who. For let alone time and all that stuff.

Judy Newman [00:21:35]:
But if we can make the the child and the and the caregiver sit down together, it's gotta be a happy, you know, positive experience, not something drudgery and scary.

Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:21:44]:
I love this. Okay. Let's let's switch gears another another term because one of the things I heard you mention early on is the importance of diversity in books. And I think, you know, you and I were talking before we even hit record about some of the initiatives that you've been part of and and scholastic stance on diversity. I it wasn't too long ago that I came across a study. I think it was Madison, Wisconsin University out. They did a research study and it was like it showed the amount of characters and representation of the the the students of color or or or characters of color. And a lot of the children's books, you are more likely to see an animal than you to come were you to come across an actual person of color.

Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:22:29]:
So I I want to kind of talk about maybe how important it is for us to diversify the book selections that are available to our students. And any tips that you might have around that?

Judy Newman [00:22:39]:
Totally. Absolutely important. I mean, the problem is that the publishing industry, like teaching, is majority, you know, white white women or, I guess, white people. And so they don't know really historically. Now after George Floyd, there was, you know, after the murder of George Floyd, there was some energy around diversity in publishing, and they try. But it's it's not an authentic experience really unless you have, you know, people of color editing the books, creating the books, publishing the books. And the distribution systems in publishing are complicated, so that's like a whole other session we can talk about at some point down the road. But we are committed to creating books and distributing books.

Judy Newman [00:23:20]:
And there's actually quite a lot of wonderful diverse books being published, not necessarily through the regular mainstream channels, but we have to get them to the kids, get them directly to the kids for whom they're intending because, you know, you wanna see yourself in books, obviously, and we have to make that of those books available to kids. Now that's not to say that, you know, kids across all backgrounds and all, you know, all cultures don't wanna read Dog Man or Captain Underpants. Of course, you know, that's possible as well. But we also have to have, you know, characters of color, situations that are relevant to all kids. And that's what I am passionate about in our work with United States of Readers and what has Scholastic really done. Scholastic has really done for many decades. And the other thing is, I mean, to be honest, it's Sunday, so, you know, we're comfortable here. I mean, white people are afraid to have these conversations, and they're not sure what's the right language, are they gonna say something stupid, and that's it.

Judy Newman [00:24:19]:
You know, you never get anywhere unless you break through that. And going back to grad school with people who are, you know, my younger than my children, it was very eye opening because it's, you know, it forces you to really listen and be in the conversation in a different way than my experience. And I think we talked about also a little bit earlier, you know, we formed a diversity council include, includes inclusion council at Scholastic. Being with my colleagues of color really helped me understand, you know, how these conversations have to happen without fear of, you know, without embarrassment or whatever people are worried about to move it forward. So you'll see in the background, I have this beautiful, piece of artwork by Kadir Nelson, who is an incredible illustrator. And, you know, there's so many wonderful books that need to be published and need to be distributed better.

Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:25:10]:
Would you say that we need more, I don't know, illustrators and authors of color as well? Is that something that that you're seeing?

Judy Newman [00:25:17]:
Yes. Of course. Yes. I think they're there. I think authors and illustrators are out there. It's just getting into the mainstream publishing mechanisms for distribution. Distribution. Of course, now there's self publishing and, you know, you can do you can get it out a little bit more.

Judy Newman [00:25:30]:
I mean, it's it's a problem in general in publishing that, you know, we have to find ways to get stuff, you know, bigger than just the best sellers out there. But I think we have to work on the distribution and the marketing as much as we do about the the what we're publishing. That makes sense. There's a lot of wonderful creators, wonderful creators out there.

Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:25:48]:
So overall from today's conversation, I'm I'm hearing, one, we need to be able to give students choice. Yes. When it comes to book selection, yes, we can kinda encourage, but it should not be necessarily a forced thing. I also heard that it's okay for a student to not finish a book and see, hey. You know what? This doesn't work for me. Let's try another book. You know, still encourage them to read those books. And then, also, it's important for us to be intentional with our efforts with diversifying the book selections that are available.

Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:26:24]:
I think sometimes what happens is, you know, we tend to look at books that we might be interested in. And so those are some of the or maybe those are books that we read when we were kids or our children read as a kid.

Judy Newman [00:26:35]:
Right.

Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:26:36]:
And so we miss some opportunities to really dig into what other authors or what are the book genres, things like that that are available that might be more that might speak more to our our our our demographics within our classroom. So those are some of the my key takeaways. Are there any other areas that we haven't touched on that you wanna bring up to this conversation?

Judy Newman [00:26:59]:
Yeah. And just to be clear, I think you don't have to finish a book, but as you said, you gotta get another one. You gotta keep going. So reading isn't optional, but what you're reading should not be forced. I think we're just being really we have to be really creative and inspiring kids and caregivers and families and teachers to be excited about reading. So, you know, role models are are an option. I know there was this story in USA Today because, you know, there was a football player, AJ Brown. I'm not a big football fan, but reading on the side, and that went viral.

Judy Newman [00:27:30]:
And I think that's inspiring for kids and people to to see that, you know, a major football player or receiver can read. What I took away from that story was a little bit different, actually. It's it felt to me that he was reading it was, you know, to read about excellence, whatever that book was about. But it was also like a go to kind of a comfort or a go to kind of resource for him to activate, and that's a huge part of books. You know, if you're dealing with something, if you're upset about something, you know, wondering about something, curious about something, if you're, you know, if your pet dies or, you know, more difficult books are really good ways to engage and immerse yourself and get insight to stuff you're going through. So I think role models are huge. Obviously sports figures can be amazing role models. AJ Brown, we recently just did a partnership with Caitlin Clark's foundation.

Judy Newman [00:28:25]:
She's a WNBA basketball person. Amazing commitment to kids, and and we wanna work with other, you know, other athletes across all kinds of ways to get to kids to demystify reading, to make it fun, and show by example.

Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:28:40]:
Alright. Well, I have learned a lot today, Judy, and I really appreciate your time. I'd love for you to take us home with any final words of advice you wanna provide to our listeners.

Judy Newman [00:28:50]:
Yeah. I just think let's all work together to demystify books, and it doesn't have to be a rarefied thing, you know, off in the library or off, you know, it's not the purview of experts, literacy experts necessarily. It should be just as popular and accessible and relatable and, really customizable as all the other media that kids are consuming. As we said, movies or TVs or games or songs, music, it should be we should really respect the children and respect their caregivers to make sure that the books we're showing them to read and suggesting they read and offering them to read are books for them, and then making sure we give them access. Because we could talk all day long about it, but if they don't have access to books, like, how are they supposed to do anything? So that's our work as responsible adults and, you know, shepherds of American democracy to make sure that every kid has access to choose and own their own books and build their libraries and see themselves as a reader because otherwise, you know, without a literate population and, you know, the the statistics now are quite terrible that something like only 30% of kids are reading at grade level by third grade. That's not okay. So let's find a bold new big bet approach to this.

Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:30:05]:
End it there. If we have some folks that wanna connect with you, what's the best way to reach you online?

Judy Newman [00:30:10]:
Yeah. It's [email protected] is my email. Alright. That's right.

Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:30:15]:
Are you on any of the social platforms?

Judy Newman [00:30:17]:
I am. I'm on everything. I I'm very, you know, I'm on LinkedIn. I'm on, Instagram, and I'm on Facebook.

Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:30:24]:
Okay. Okay. Alright. Well, we

Judy Newman [00:30:26]:
My mind's always helping me sort those out, but feel free to reach out.

Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:30:29]:
Well, Judy, it has truly been a pleasure. We appreciate your time.

Judy Newman [00:30:32]:
Thank you so much. And I'm getting your book. I ordered it. So I'm just going to read it as well. So thanks for the work you're doing. It's it's so important, honestly.

Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:30:41]:
My pleasure. Thank you.

Judy Newman [00:30:42]:
Alright. Take care. Bye bye.

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