Food Literacy Summer Author Series - Libraries Full of Life: School Gardens and Literacy with Rick Swann

Food Literacy Summer Author Series - Rick Swann author of Our School Garden! 

Dig into food literacy this summer with our Readers to Eaters Author Series sponsored by South Carolina Farm to School. Meet award-winning author Rick Swann when he presents "Libraries Full of Life: School Gardens and Literacy" 

Arden Bucklin-Sporer and Rachel Kathleen Pringle in their book How to Grow a School Garden describe school gardens as “libraries full of life, mystery, and surprise.” I agree. For me, being in a garden is like reading a good book. Conversely, a book set in a garden can transport you outside and into that garden even if you’re trapped inside on a rainy day. In this talk, I’ll use Our School Garden! as well as other award-winning garden-themed books and resources to examine ways educators can bring literacy and literature into the school garden. 

In this session, participants will meet Readers to Eaters founder Philip Lee and discover how his motto of "Good Reads & Good Eats" helps to foster conversations about growing, cooking, and eating food! 

Tracy Miskelly, Director of South Carolina Ag in the Classroom will welcome us back to school with the SC Ag in the Classroom Book of the Month program and more! 

Rick Swann is the author of Our School Garden! which received the Growing Good Kids Book Award from the American Horticultural Society and Junior Master Gardener. It’s a picture book that, in a series of linked poems, tells the story of Michael, new to a school, who discovers not just how vegetables grow but how a community can grow from a garden. Rick is a former Seattle elementary school teacher and librarian.