Northeast Ohio Parent’s Reading Room has partnered with Cleveland Public Library this year. Each month, the library system will be providing book recommendations to help bring awareness to literacy and the citywide reading initiative, “Cleveland Reads.”
The goal is for Cleveland residents to collectively read one million books and/or one million minutes in 2023. Sign up at clevelandreads.com.
Here are some recommended reads from Annisha Jeffries, Cleveland Public Library’s Youth Services Manager.
A Polar Bear in the Snow 
by Mac Barnett and illustrated by Shawn Harris
A polar bear, at first invisible as he blends in with the surrounding whiteness of snow, takes readers on a mysterious journey —past seals, a cave, and even a human. With a burst of blue, readers discover he has arrived at the sea where he takes the plunge for a playful swim.
The Old Truck
by Jarrett and Jerome Pumphrey
The delightful spreads were created by using over 250 handmade stamps with digital assembly and color from the Pumphrey brothers. The illustrations are deceptively simple, but upon closer examination readers see that the Pumphreys’ created much more complicated, detailed scenes, the illustrations impressively carry three separate stories: the truck, the farm, and the little girl.
And We Rise: The Civil Rights Movement in Poems
by Erica Martin
Short poems use negative space and concrete poetry elements to tell the history of the Civil Rights Movement in the United States. The impact of the poems in this powerful, necessary book is strengthened by the layout of the text and drives home the struggle for equality.