Legacy of Love & Literacy by Dr. Cate McCarty
Nancy Dulniak reading to grandson and son Craig.
Today’s world for children is complicated. That is an under-statement. As the world deals with new traumas, or those from its inception, children are challenged to cope with how they respond, how they process their peers’ response and how to learn despite the traumas around them.
For many of us who are years from being children, the books were a safe space. The library--a haven.
No matter what was happening in our home or our community, we could escape to Ramona or The Oregon Trail series. Respite from the noise and complications. Books gave us knowledge and showed us how other people dealt with challenges.
Children exposed to books become adults who read. In fact, a 2020 retrospective study found that early reading experiences were associated with adolescent literacy skills.1 The study looked at children being read to by an adult.
Just as Nancy Dulniak did as a librarian, mother, and grandmother. Nana’s Books Foundation is her legacy to childhood literacy. As a child she loved books which led to her role as a librarian in many school settings. Referred to as Nana, she read to her grandchildren, and gifted them with the love of books.
In her last years with Alzheimer’s Nancy’s family began gifting school children with books that spoke of dementia and other health challenges they might be facing at home or at school. Title I schools were chosen for Nana’s Books because these are schools deemed by the federal government to have a high percentage of poor and disadvantaged children. Public libraries local to the distribution school are included in Nana’s book donations.
Nancy’s legacy is one of literacy, love and kindness. Take a moment and consider what book comes to mind as one that changed your thinking about dementia or a health challenge.
Was the impact worth a donation to Nana’s Books?
Footnotes
1Tremblay, B., Rodrigues, M., & Martin-Chang, S. (2020). From Storybooks to Novels: A retrospective approach linking print exposure in childhood to adolescent literacy, Frontiers of Psychology, 18 September 2020, Sec. Educational Psychology, Volume 11 – 2020, https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.571033