Sibling Story一對(duì)姐妹的故事

Haili Smith， 16， says she and hersibling， Brooke， “have very differenttastes in books”. Haili likes spinetinglers2.Brooke， 13， prefers fantasy3.What they share is the belief that kids aremore motivated4 to read if they relate toa book’s characters. That’s why， in 2020，they started Books Like Me. Thenonprofit5 group supplies teachers withculturally diverse6 children’s books.

“We didn’t really like reading，”Haili said. “Then we started to look forbooks that had characters we sawourselves in. It made us want to readmore. We thought we could share thatwith students， because we knew that thiswasn’t just something that affected us.”

So far， Haili and Brooke have givenaway more than 16，000 books. As wordabout their organization has spread，requests have come in from schoolsnationwide.

Educators say it’s important forstudents to have access7 to children’s bookswith different characters. A book can be amirror， letting kids see themselves reflectedin its characters. Or it can be a window，helping kids see from the perspective8 ofcharacters with backgrounds and experiencesdifferent from their own.

Over the years， Haili and Brooke havebeen invited to speak with educators aboutthe importance of culturally diverse books.They’ve also taken books directly tostudents.“At a book fair in Florida， I was ata table showing kids the books and theywere picking them out，” Haili recalls.“They all looked so happy when they founda book that really resonated9 with them.”

That， of course， is the goal.

16 歲的海莉·史密斯說，她和她的妹妹布魯克“對(duì)書的品味截然不同”。（剩余713字）