Books in Small Bites, Building Lifelong Readers

Books in Small Bites (3:49) We live in a fast-paced world – overflowing with texts, tweets and Instagram posts – small bits of info grabbed on the run. We’re in a breathless hurry and want everything short. But books haven’t gone away quite yet, nor should they. So, how do we convince busy people, especially the young, to sit down and read a real book, even if it’s just for a few minutes at a time? Our first guest, Esha Gupta, co-founder of a new company, HOOKED, has co-developed a tool that is getting the Snapchat generation to read. It’s a mobile app that takes them into a fiction book in the form of 5 minute text message conversations. Gupta also shares the story behind the app’s origin. Esha’s studies were in Film and Psychology at Columbia University. She now lives in Oakland where she enjoys boxing, cooking and of course, reading. Building Lifelong Readers (14:44) Up next on Worlds Awaiting, Dr. Steven L. Layne, professor of Literacy Education at Judson University, Illinois, talks about his lifetime mission of helping kids become passionate about reading and becoming lifelong readers. Layne is an award-winning author of books for children and young adults and enjoys meeting his readers on school visits. He’s a frequent keynote speaker to groups of literacy educators and librarians throughout the world and has received numerous awards for his work as an educator and researcher. Book Review (24:29) We finish up the show today with Trent Nelson, English and Creative Writing teacher at Timberline Middle School in Utah. He introduces a middle grade book entitled Free Verse by Sarah Dooley.