Southeast Bronx Neighborhood Center
May 11, 2005

From May 10 to May 12, Monalisa DeGross a young children’s author visited Church Avenue Merchants Block Association (CAMBA), located in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn. On May 11, she visited young readers at the Southeast Bronx Neighborhood Center.

Ms. DeGross met with about 125 elementary students attending CAMBA’s after-school program. Before her visit, students read her book, Donovan’s Word Jar, and prepared questions. With each group, Ms. DeGross answered questions, discussed why she wrote the book, and did a problem solving exercise. At the end of her three-day visit, a few of the students had decided that they wanted to be authors.

About 80 pre-kindergarteners and kindergarteners from Southeast Bronx Neighborhood Center met with Ms. DeGross. Before her visit, the teachers had read Ms. DeGross’s book Granddaddy’s Street Songs to the young students. During the visit, the author explained how the characters spent their day selling fruits and vegetables. When Ms. DeGross asked the students what fruits or vegetables they would sell, some said, “cantaloupes, plantains, coconuts,” and other items not mentioned in the book. In addition, the young readers created jingles about the fruits and vegetables.

The National Book Foundation Settlement House Author Residency program is made possible through leadership funding from the Theodore H. Barth Foundation, R. R. Donnelley, and National Endowment for the Arts, with additional support from Houghton Mifflin, the New York State Council on the Arts, Neil Baldwin, John T. Beaudouin, Jonathan Franzen, Jean Fritz, George and Susan Garrett, Regina Lee, Jacquelyn Mitchard, Nicholasa Mohr, and Carl and Susan Tubbesing.

HarperCollins Publishers donated copies of Donovan’s Word Jar to the National Book Foundation for the participants and the Settlement House library.