Get Them Reading!
AN AMAZING AFTERNOON WITH JUDY NEWMAN AT THE BUGGY WHIP FACTORY
August 1, 2021 // By Joshua Sherman, M.D.
THE BOOK LADY Judy Newman sits in her office at the historic Buggy Whip Factory in Southfield.
WHEN I WAS around 10, my father was very concerned that I wasn’t reading enough books. But he also noticed that I loved staying up late, watching classic black-and-white movies. Armed with that knowledge, he went shopping.
This was the late-1980s and early 1990s, and many of the biggest names from Classic Hollywood were releasing “tell-all” books, sharing stories from their Golden Days. My dad bought me a couple of celebrity autobiographies, and I suddenly became a voracious reader, soaking up all of the behind-the-scenes stories and gossip shared by my heroes.
I shared this anecdote recently with Judy Newman, president of Scholastic Book Clubs. She threw her arms up with excitement. “That’s brilliant! You know, if you could bottle that for every family, we wouldn’t have a reading problem. I tell parents all the time, ‘Don’t worry about what your kid is reading, just get them reading!’ You know, it doesn’t have to be great literature. These days, kids are really into graphic novels. If a kid can pick up a graphic novel and feel successful, not intimidated, and get excited like you described, you can advance it. The child gets familiar with owning a book and having a book—and what it means to be a reader.”
In our two-plus-hour conversation, Judy and I discussed a winding range of topics, from her biography to her incredible work as a literacy advocate, from the importance of empowering educators to her newest venture as a steward of the historic Buggy Whip Factory in Southfield. Here are a few highlights.
You attended Connecticut College as a government major, then the Radcliffe Publishing Procedures Course, and then received your MBA from NYU. You’ve been incredibly successful, but now you are getting your Masters in Education at Harvard. Why go back to school now?
I am a firm believer in the fact that education is a continual process. I want to immerse myself in the contemporary education community and really develop a personal understanding of the pedagogical and real-life challenges that classroom teachers are facing, including the 77 percent of U.S. teachers who are white women teaching classes full of kids that are at least 60 percent non-white, economically disadvantaged, and coming from a wide variety of backgrounds. And of course, I want to continue to develop my understanding of the role of books and reading in every classroom. My lifelong passion for learning has never stopped, and I’m excited to continue my education and expand my understanding even further. Teachers administer the Scholastic Book Clubs, hand out the flyers, and arguably play the most important role in the dissemination of literary resources to young students, and I want to make sure that I have a deep and thorough understanding of the challenges that they are facing.
You (and Scholastic) seem totally committed to both Building Community and Learning. Tell me more.
Nearly everything that I do, both in my personal life and my work at Scholastic, is focused on community. Here at Scholastic, we remain committed to helping nearly one million teachers excel in the classroom community. We want them to be able to introduce their students to a diverse range of books. The aim is to help teachers in communities across the country instill a love for independent “pleasure” reading in their students, so that every student can proudly declare, “I am a reader!” By partnering with educators through our book club programs, we allow children to choose the books that interest them. Children from all backgrounds, cultures, and life experiences should be able to see themselves reflected in the books that they read. And teachers are the key! Teachers have—and always will—play a critical role in creating a classroom community of readers and nurturing a love of reading in all of their students, starting with pre-kindergarten and building from there.
Not every child has access to books in their home, but every young child nonetheless deserves to experience a life-changing and life-affirming experience through reading. Understanding that, we are continually focused on partnering with nearly one million Pre-K to eighth grade classroom teachers to help them get books into their students’ hands. We also host weekly online focus groups, which help to start fruitful dialogues between teachers who live both in big cities and tiny towns. These ongoing discussions allow teachers to share ideas and plans and offer helpful support and insight to one another about navigating in-classroom challenges. We want to make sure that teachers everywhere can connect with students and their families and develop the critical “school-to-home connection.” It’s important to make sure that families develop a culture of books and reading at home. This is especially important with families in which the adults aren’t necessarily comfortable with reading themselves— or are unfamiliar with the ritual of reading bedtime stories. Lastly, in today’s digital age, we have to make sure that we are helping parents and families devise strategies to help make sure that their kids are getting a break from screens and online media.
It seems that “student empowerment” is key to “student engagement.” Would you agree with that?
Teachers and parents can place orders online, but we have found that children still love the experience of perusing the paper flyers, circling their choices, filling in the forms, and picking out the books that THEY want to read. There’s also a sense of palpable excitement that lasts through every stage of the ordering process. It starts with the children negotiating with their parents and caregivers about the books that they want—and ends with a period of delicious anticipation as they wait for the books to arrive in their classroom. When the books finally arrive, the students get to take them home knowing that they have played a central role in the entire process. That really gives them a deep feeling of connection to the books, and it makes it more likely that they become avid and passionate readers and develop a lifelong love for books and reading.
We work hard to offer all types of books—all reading levels, subject matter, genres—in which kids can see themselves reflected; build empathy as they read about others; learn new facts as they read compelling non-fiction; laugh out loud at funny books; develop a deep vocabulary, without which they can’t express themselves or understand what others are saying; and be empowered by choosing and owning something of their very own.
Tell me about your plans for the Buggy Whip Factory and your nickname, “The Book Lady.”
The Buggy Whip Factory (BWF), itself, has been a community fixture since 1795. The BWF is now a hub for all kinds of local craftspeople, artists, businesspeople, writers, and the local Post Office. I’ve had an office here for over six years, but purchased the building more recently. As we think about renovating the second floor, which is currently vacant, I plan to keep the Southfield community front and center. I always want the property to feel like a welcoming central fixture in Southfield and preserve its history and place in the community.
As far as my role as “The Book Lady,” for years at my home in Montclair, New Jersey, on Halloween, instead of candy, I’ve given out books. Kids come from all over Montclair and from neighboring towns, including from a community center in Newark, to line up to choose their books. They talk with me, sometimes at great length while the long line of kids in costumes wait (im)patiently behind them, about the book they got last year. Sometimes, they loved it. Sometimes, they tell me what they think the author could have done better!
We did a version of this book giveaway last fall at the BWF for local kids and teachers. It really brought people together. Janice Boults–who, decades ago, worked at the BWF as a 17-year old—is a longtime Southfield native who now lives on the BWF property and is the caretaker. She played a critical role in the Berkshires book giveaway as the unofficial “book person”—and she mobilized our just-retired UPS delivery person, Tom Bordeau, to help deliver books to community programs and teachers around the Berkshires. It was really successful and again, through the power of children’s books, signaled to the community that we can all come together around books and reading.