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| Me and Angie at the Dolly Parton Imagination Library HQ |
Howdy, reader! When I last spoke to y’all I was heading
through the cornfields of Iowa, when now I’m sat in the foothills of the Great Smoky
Mountains in what con only be described as Dixie Vegas or my own new favourite moniker
for it, which I came up with yesterday, the “Blackpool” Appalachians – this pun
will take some beating on this trip. I’ve
been from Iowa to Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky and across the great state of
Tennessee. Pigeon Forge, where I am now, is the hometown of the first lady of
Country and Western, Dolly Parton, and is home to Dollywood, her theme-park and
home, which was the start of the springing up of some of the more eccentric
things you’ll find on the main strip here.
But, to begin at the beginning and my trip to Alton,
Illinois and St Louis. Alton seems a bit of a leftfield choice of a stop, but I
was here to meet and stay with my grandfather’s cousin, Tina and her husband
David. Tina and I had never met so I was unsure who I was looking for when I
got to the parking lot of the Greyhound Station – her Facebook profile picture
is of her corgi Dylan. But we found each other fine and 30 minutes later we
were in a diner/micro-brewery in Alton having dinner with her friend Marcy.
Tina is a real animal lover and has two dogs and “several” cats – Alton has a
by-law which limits the number of cats you can have, so I’ll not say exactly
how many! I spent one day just chilling in Alton and walked along the river.
The next day, I went into St Louis on the train and headed to the neighbourhood
of Brentwood to meet the
Little Bit Foundation.
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| Me and Ashley at Little Bit in St Louis. |
It was amazing to see the work which Little Bit does – their
model was so a complete, 360-degree, all-encompassing one which, when it saw a
need, took steps to combat it. When they identified that many children were not
staying at fixed addresses, often moving between parents, aunts, grandparents,
then they gave these children large wheel-y backpacks that could fit much more
than just their school belongings in. When it was seen that children sometimes
came to school with their clothes unwashed, they put washers and driers, plus
provided detergent, in schools. They found the Zoe Zookeeper book, a program
run by Boots Opticians and The National Literacy Trust, very interesting and,
as they are developing STEM programs, I said I’d put them in touch with the
wonderful Rick at Ignite!
The Literacy programs, when compared to the other
organisations I had visited were more modest – book fairs in schools and
community settings and a fun pre-K to 2nd Grade program, Books and
Buddies, where the class would get a whole class set of books with a paired
stuffed animal (a book about a bear with a bear, a dog with a dog) and these
would rotate around the class (animal and book) until the whole class had read
the lot and then they could chose a favourite book and buddy to take home.
After another night in Alton with the amazingly welcoming
Tina and David, I headed back to the bus station to go across the country yet
again – this time covering 497 miles in a day, with a stop off at a public
library! From St Louis I travelled through the countryside to Nashville! And
did I go to the Country Music Hall of Fame? No! I went to the library, and I’m
so glad I did. Nashville Public Library is currently US Library of the Year and
it is a title well deserved.
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| The Reading Fort at Nashville Public Library. |
The Nashville Public Library’s Children’s Library is one of
the most special children’s learning spaces I’ve ever been to – and got the
guided tour from Frieda, one of the librarians. The space is huge and is filled
with incredible things for children to do beyond just reading the books –
however important that is! Like Chicago it has spaces within the bookshelves
for the children to crawl through, a climbing wall surrounded by crash mats on
one wall and in the centre a “reading fort” which is modelled on the Nashville
skyline (I feel a Dylan song coming on…). They also had a large teen section,
housed in a part of the library at the opposite end to the children’s library. I
liked this separation and the feel in the teen section was very different to
the other teen areas which had been contained in children’s/youth section in
other places. Here there was games consoles, chill-out spaces and study booths plus
an incredible maker space. In the fully staffed space there were three kitted
out recording studio booths, a music area, green screen, a video lab, an
engineering-design bench and several 3D printers. I met Megan, one of the staff
working with the young people there after school that day, and we chatted about
the space, how many young people come in and use it and games narrative design –
she loved the idea behind Nottingham Libraries and the NVA’s Story Smash!
Sadly, I couldn’t stay longer in Nashville as my connecting
bus to Knoxville was departing soon, and 3 hours and 1-time zone later. I
arrived in East Tennessee. This wasn’t the end of my travel that day, however –
a quick Uber-ride from Knoxville and I was in Pigeon Forge in neighbouring Sevier
County: the home of Dolly Parton! This is also where my first real mishap of
this trip happened as I got drop at what I thought was my motel for this night
at about 12:30am, only to find I was at the wrong Rodeway Inn (there were two)
and mine was 2 miles further down the road! After a brisk 40-minute walk though
I was checked-in and tucked up for some well-earned sleep!
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| The Smoky Mountains in fall (not my picture, but it looked like this). Image courtesy of Visit Gatlinburg. |
The next day was my meeting with the Dolly Parton Imagination Library – a
program which has been running in Nottingham for a while now and we are one of
the largest centres for the scheme in the UK. I met with Angie, who is the
Library’s International Director, to talk about how the program works and the
successes it has had. I also presented her with a lovely hardback edition of
the Stories of Robin Hood on behalf of the thousands of children in Nottingham
who have received books from the program and a letter from Councillor David
Mellen, who has been a tireless supporter of the Imagination Library, thanking
them for the difference they are making to children's literacy in the city.
This was a slightly different meeting than many of my others
as we’re already running the program back home and, in the way that the
international model works, the surrounding support is delivered by the local
partner, rather than from Dolly’s team here in Tennessee. Small Steps, Big
Changes who run Nottingham’s program locally are doing brilliant work and Angie
told me of a few other Dolly clusters which are doing interesting and engaging
support work with families. One different between the US and UK versions
currently is that in every US book, there are specially printed inner flaps on
the book dust-jacket with information and reading support tips for parents.
This is currently only available on 2 books per age-bracket in the UK as it is
too expensive on the scale of the programs, so one way we can help families to
gain this extra support is by helping get more children signed up to the library,
which you can do here!
Sadly, I was unable to meet Dolly herself – she had a big show opening the next
day and had a sponsors’ lunch, which was $5k a ticket, that I wasn’t allowed to
sneak into, which was fair enough. I did leave with plenty of cool gifts from
the library, including the great lady’s autograph!
Now I’m heading out West to Memphis – I’ve enjoyed my time
in Tennessee, Missouri and Southern Illinois and it has been good to get out of
liberal eastern metropolitan university environments. I’ve seen a different
America (no better, no worse) and had much more interesting conversations with
people, like trying to explain Northern Ireland to a guy on the Greyhound!
Trump had to come from somewhere and when you see places that have been left
behind and disillusionment has been left to fester, a demagogue can take root.
America has problems – but we cannot be naive enough to believe we don’t in the
UK. Race has been a very pronounced divide here and that, whilst I knew it was
heartbreakingly the case, I still struggle when I go to schools in deprived
areas or meet children who are being supported by these projects and the make-up
of the groups is strikingly un-diverse and often overwhelmingly African-American.
Class and privilege are barriers which we need to destroy back home, but race,
here, further compounds it. Please don’t think I feel that we don’t have
systemic problems for BAMER communities in the UK – WE DO – but I know in
Nottingham, at least, we’re doing better than much of what is provided for
diverse and non-white communities are getting here without the interventions of
some incredible organisations that I’ve been lucky enough to meet and work
with. Sorry for getting political – next stop, Memphis: home of the National
Civil Rights Museum.