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| Children's art work at the Harold Washington Library, Chicago. |
I’m now in Iowa, home of corn and the Hawkeyes, after another speed-through in Chicago. I had a fantastic few days in Illinois with my super host family, the Careys, the parents of a friend of mine and Cáit’s. Mag and Gerd were super, and I got tasty dinners every evening, including steak on the BBQ! Their house, in the suburb of Park Ridge, was very close to the commuter train station into the city.
After arriving in on my Amtrak on Tuesday morning, I went
directly to the Careys’ and had a shower. Mag made me a delicious breakfast and
then, wash and fed, I headed into Chicago again. Once at Ogilvie Station, the
hub for the commuter trains, it was straight to the L trains to cover the short
distance to the Anish Kapoor “bean” sculpture. Whilst I could have easily
walked, Chicago’s L trains are mostly elevated at 2nd storey level
and are a great way to see the city’s beautiful architecture quickly and to
nose on people in their 2nd floor offices! The bean was always going
to be on my “to do” list with Kapoor’s Sky Mirror being outside Nottingham
Playhouse so to see a sister sculpture in the US was always something I wanted
to do. Whilst the weather was pretty lousy that day, I liked the effect that
the rain had running down the chrome-shape and, still in the drizzle, I
wandered down through Millennium Park checking out all the other public art and
sculpture.
Over the road from the park is the city campus of Roosevelt
University, who I’d tried to make contact with a few times, but never very successfully.
I decided to pop in and see what was happening and the nice people at the desk
allowed me onto one of their under-graduate tours, which meant I got to see
their beautiful panelled library and go up to the 31st floor at the
top of the building for the view out onto the lake, Soldier Field and the Navy
Pier. I also chatted with their international office, who hopefully will be
able to be point of contact for future scholars. Over the road from RU is the
Harold Washington Public Library and their newly renovated children’s library,
which I was shown round by Karina, one of their amazing librarians. This was
probably the best children’s library I’ve seen. Their desk was at the right
height for children to see over and use, there was an arts and crafts maker
space, their shelves were low – allowing children to reach and access ALL the
books, there were loads of play areas with foam building blocks, puzzles and
dressing up costumes AND the low shelves had crawl through spaces for children
too – in the shape of the bean! I had such a great time with them, hearing
about how the space was designed and changed from how it used to look to be
much more ergonomic for children’s use but also chatting politics, travels in
Europe and books! The library stays open until 9 and I lost track of time, so
was late back for dinner – not the best move for a house guest.
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| Carver Elementary, South Chicago. |
On Wednesday, I was working with two amazing organisations
that were right up my street. In the morning, I went into George Washington
Carver (the man who invented peanut butter) Elementary School in South Chicago
with the amazing Stay Sit
Read. SSR is an incredible organisation that works with schools in deprived
neighbourhoods to get children reading though reading books aloud together and
in a fun playful way, whilst also using this technique to create story prompts
for the children to write their own tales! They also bring dogs into school and
allow the children to interact with and read to the dogs. The whole curriculum
is canine themed and gives the children access to books, reading, being read to
and positive settings around dogs, which all may be things not happening at
home. I was on a table with 5 2nd graders and we read Biscuit Goes
to School together – I was quickly adopted by the quiet but trying Floyd, who
on a table of boisterous kids was struggling to read the book and concentrate
on forming the words. We ended up reading the book line by line to each other
and making loud woofing noises every time we turned the page. Floyd struggled
to get motivated in the story activity, but then it was his turn to hang out
with Maggie the dog. When he came back to the table, he was transformed and
together we wrote a short-story about him bringing a dog to school and he drew
a great little picture. I think Floyd and that interaction will be hard to top
as a highlight of the trip.
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| 826 Chicago's Secret Agent Supply Store, Wicker Park |
Kate, SSR’s program leader, dropped me back in Chicago in
the funky neighbourhood of Wicker Park, where I grabbed a coffee and browsed
the used bookstores, before my meeting with 826
Chicago and their Secret Agent Supply Store. I met with Tyler, their store
manager, and spent an hour picking his brains for tips on how to run the
storefront element of an 826 space. He has certainly been the most retail
focussed of the 826 staffers I’ve met and, with around 20% of 826CHI’s funding
coming via the retail space, it is paying off – Chicago, Tyler tells me, is the
826 with the highest proportion of their funding coming directly from the
store. I also got to see some of their after-school program in action and saw
loads of kids benefitting from the 826 tuition. On my way back into town I popped
into Podhalanka, the Polish diner. Chicago is the second largest Polish
conurbation in the world behind Warsaw, so I couldn’t miss out on some pierogi
and kielbasa! Tyler also put me onto another organisation, Open Books, who sell second-hand books to
raise money for children’s literacy programs and it was conveniently close to Ogilvie,
so I nipped in before my train back to Park Ridge and got Cáit a book!
Another sleep and another hearty Carey breakfast, then it
was back to Chicago on the commuter train and my Windstar bus to Iowa City.
Having a great time in Iowa City so far and will write up my time here when I’m
on the bus to St Louis tomorrow!