MR. PATRICK M. OLIVER HAS A MESSAGE FOR CHILDREN: "READING IS NOT ONLY COOL, IT'S NECESSARY!"

TURN THE PAGE AND YOU DON'T STOP!
SHARING SUCCESSFUL CHAPTERS IN OUR LIVES WITH YOUTH
ISBN: 0-9779499-0-7
Edited/Published by: MR. PATRICK M. OLIVER
Foreword by: MR. USENI EUGENE PERKINS
Website: www.speakloudly.com
E-MAIL: sayitloudyouth@yahoo.com



POEM TO A YOUNG BLACK MIND

come now born
beautiful ones
be intrigued
to know learn
acquire truths
modify myths
discover your
authentic value
against an un/authentic landscape
come now born
beautiful ones
open a book
of reliable source
& encounter who u
supremely are

Allyson Horton
Excerpt from Turn The Page And You Don’t Stop! Sharing Successful Chapters In Our Lives With Youth
Page 86

He is the Founder of the Say It Loud! Readers And Writers Series, the Co-Founder of the Black Male Development Symposium, a marketing consultant, and a development specialist. He is Mr. Patrick M. Oliver. Currently, Mr. Oliver serves as the Program Director for the Open Book Program – a city-wide reading project in Chicago, Illinois. And through his book, Turn The Page And You Don't Stop! Sharing Successful Chapters In Our Lives With Youth, Mr. Oliver delivers a clear and simple message to children that resonates with power: READ!

What’s the deal? Why has it become necessary for Mr. Oliver to assemble twenty-seven (27) individuals from diverse geographic backgrounds and professions who, through Turn The Page And You Don't Stop! Sharing Successful Chapters In Our Lives With Youth, are telling young folks that not only is reading cool, but it is necessary? It seems that for far too many children, reading has become a “lost art”. Easy access to and preoccupation with cell phones, video games, iPods, and MP3s may be a few of the reasons why reading has become a “lost art” for many children.

Each of the Contributors to Turn The Page And You Don't Stop! Sharing Successful Chapters In Our Lives With Youth point to reading as a key “piece of the puzzle” to their personal and professional development and success. Turn The Page And You Don't Stop! Sharing Successful Chapters In Our Lives With Youth poignantly explains, among other things, why reading is an important tool of empowerment for children and how reading shapes our children’s perspective of their future and the world outside of their immediate environment.

So, who are the Contributors to Turn The Page And You Don't Stop! Sharing Successful Chapters In Our Lives With Youth? Cory Anderson of the Annie E. Casey Foundation in Baltimore, Maryland; Melrita Bonner - a Librarian with the Central Arkansas Library System in Little Rock, Arkansas; Tracey Lynn Bryant - poet, songwriter, radio talk show host on WURD 900 AM and WPEB 88.1 FM and Founder of Writer Blocks Newspaper and the Society for Urban Literary Arts in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Kenneth Carroll - Founder and Executive Director of D.C. WritersCorp.; Reverend Maurice Coverson - Pastor of the Church of the Spirit, Founder and President of the Institute for Positive Living and Executive Director of the Open Book Program; Frank Frazier - a self-taught artist whose works have been featured in books, films, television and movies such as Waiting To Exhale, Coming To America, Frank’s Place, and Bustin’ Loose; Patrice Gaines - author of Laughing In The Dark, From Colored Girl To Woman Of Color – A Journey From Prison To Power, and Moments of Grace, Dr. Sandra Y. Govan - a Professor of English at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte whose works have been published in Black American Literature Forum, The Langston Hughes Review, Erotique Noire and Langston Hughes: The Man, His Art And His Continuing Influence; Hadassah Hickman - President of Sitar Capital Group, a full-service business development firm; The Honorable Victor Hill - an Eastern Arkansas Circuit Judge, Indianapolis, Indiana native and entertainer Allyson Horton; Wade Hudson - President and Chief Executive Officer of Just Us Books, Inc., an independent publishing company; Andrew Jackson – Executive Director of Queens Borough Public Library’s Langston Hughes Community Library and Cultural Center and author of a soon-to-be published book, Queen Notes: Facts About The Forgotten Borough, Queens, New York; Parneshia Jones - a recipient of the Gwendolyn Brooks Poetry Award and the Margaret Walker Short Story Award who works in publishing for Northwestern University Press; Janis F. Kearney - a Visiting Fellow at DePaul University’s Humanities Center, writer, lecturer, historian, and Founder of Writing Our World Press who recently published Cotton Field Of Dreams: A Memoir; Haki R. Madhubuti - Distinguished University Professor and Professor of English at Chicago State University, Founder and Publisher of Third World Press and award-winning poet; Dr. Julianne Malveaux - economist, author, commentator and President and Chief Executive Officer of Last Word Productions, Inc.; D.H. Melham, Ph.D. – author and recipient of an American Book Award; David C. Miller, M.Ed. – author and co-founder and Chief Visionary Officer of the Urban Leadership Institute, LLC; E. Ethelbert Miller – literary activist, author and Board Chair of the Institute for Policy Studies; Opal Moore – Fulbright Scholar, DuPont Scholar, author and recipient of the Bellagio and Mellon Fellowships; Useni Eugene Perkins – one of the pioneers of the Rites To Passage Movement, author, and President of the Association for the Positive Development of Black Youth; Felicia Pride – founder and editor of BackList (http://www.thebacklist.net/), a website that is devoted to keeping books in style and a free-lance marketing who works full-time in publishing; Jamel Shabazz - author and photographer whose photographs have graced the walls of galleries around the world; Irene Smalls, B.A., M.A. – author, storyteller, historian and educator whose presentations include, among other things, core components of literary instruction for K-5 students; Dr. Ivory Achebe Toldson – author, psychologist, Howard University Professor and clinical consultant for the Manhood Training Village; Lynette C. Velasco – President of Black Americans In Publishing, author, poet, consultant to the Medgar Evers College of the City University of New York and a contributor to Black Issues Book Review; and Latoya Wolfe, recipient of the Zora Neale Hurston/Bessie Head Fiction Award, the Union League Civic and Arts Foundation Short Story Award and the Betty Shiflett/John Schultz Short Story Competition.

Each of these individuals has thought-provoking things to say about the power of the written word and how reading is a boundary-transcending experience which ignites the imagination and unlocks the door to opportunities. Through poetry and masterful storytelling each of these individuals encourages our children to read.

Turn The Page And You Don't Stop! Sharing Successful Chapters In Our Lives With Youth is a “must read” literary work for parents, educators, youths, Fatherhood practitioners, social services providers, social services professionals and concerned citizens.

* * *

D.A. Sears, Managing Editor - IN SEARCH OF FATHERHOOD(R)