Author and the founder of Leap For Literacy Stan Tucker made a special visit to Lexington-Richland School District Five’s Summer Reading Camp.
Stanley Tucker, also known as Stan the Man, is a former second-grade teacher who now tours schools as a literary advocate encouraging young people to tell their story and promote kindness. He brought his writing program called Share Your Story and helped to guide the students through the process of writing a book and at the end of the process some of the books may get chosen to be professionally published. Having helped more than 100 children get their writing professionally illustrated and published through his literacy program, Tucker said that they shouldn’t be intimidated by the process and encouraged them to share their story.
“I am very passionate about stories because everyone who is born has a story and my goal is to inspire students to write a story that makes their family proud,” Tucker said. “Writing a book can be a daunting task but I teach the kids to take a step-by-step approach to it and that way they can completely tell any story they have in mind.”
Stan’s passion for literacy began when he worked as a second-grade teacher in a Title 1 school. Having worked with lower-income and at-risk students, he was able to see the gaps in education that these students faced. Some of the children he taught had little to no personal reading materials at home. Stan also noticed that at school book fairs, many of his students weren’t able to get a book of their own. And, this is where he started to think of ways he could help.
His program, Leap for Literacy, gives books away to kids from his colorful bookmobile called the Read N’ Roll — and the currency is kindness.
“The whole concept of this bookmobile is students earn books through acts of kindness,” Tucker said. “While I was stocking books on the bus, I thought wouldn’t it be cool one day to have a section on this bookmobile of books completely written by kids…so that is one of my goals.”
Tucker also has his own popular show on YouTube, “The Very Airy Library.” Each week, Stan and his faithful cast of friends spread the message of literacy by visiting accomplished authors of all ages from all around the globe. These lucky few get their books placed in the Eternal Library, where their work will live on forever.
“It’s really cool for me to have this show that kids believe in because it gives me the opportunity to inspire them to want to read and write books that will one day be in the Very Airy Library,” Tucker said. “My whole goal is to inspire the next generation of storytellers through the Very Airy Library!”
