BookSmart Community Advantage recognizes the power of books, reading, and the arts and the importance these play in our lives.

By Emily Shem-Tov

Emily Shem-Tov

When times get stressful and dark, many of us look to the arts to get us through. A quote from the start of the pandemic going around my social media feeds reads, “As you binge watch your thirteenth entire series or read a book or sleep to music, remember. Remember that in the darkest days when everything stopped, you turned to artists.”

At BookSmart Community Advantage, a local nonprofit formed in January 2017 as part of the Morgan Hill Community Foundation and closely aligned with local independent bookstore BookSmart, we recognize the power of books, reading, and the arts and the importance these play in our lives. It’s our mission to foster literacy and community through reading, writing, art, and educational programs — and the past few years have reminded so many of us of the comfort that these things can bring.

In partnership with the AAUW-Morgan Hill, The Friends of the Morgan Hill Library, and Morgan Hill Life, BCA’s annual Gift of Reading program is about spreading the joy of reading. Our book drive to collect new or like-new books to share with hundreds of children in the community during the holidays is a way for anyone to become involved in the gift of literacy. This past December, with the community’s help, we distributed more than 1,200 individual books to local children and families, sharing a little of our love of reading with others.

This year’s annual Gift of Reading book drive included our third annual writing contest. In addition to collecting books, we invited readers of all ages to enter short poems on the subject of why books, poetry, arts, or music are important to them. We want to thank everyone who shared their poems with us. We also want to thank our panel of local judges, all incredible authors and poets themselves, who did the difficult work of picking winners from the incredible options.

Below are the winners and a few of the full poems:

Very Young (up to 3rd grade): Divya Nedumaran

Young (4th-8th grade): Santiago Ramirez (Body movin’ to the beat), Adia Seider (Just Me And My Book) and Jonathan Shin (Art)

Adult (9th grade and up): Alissa Crispin (A Painting is Like a Whale), and Danielle Chaisson (The Song Begins)

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Just Me And My Book, by Adia Seider

Just me and my book

Stories about dragons and heroes

Stories about oceans and seas

Could be about jungles and trees

Or maybe about fruits and veggies

Many, many, stories

Legends of wizards and werewolves

Legends of monsters and yetis

Beliefs of ghosts and many other things

Just me, reading my books in peace

I am only thinking about the story

I am imagining and picturing what’s happening

I forget everything else

I am focused, still and quiet

When I am reading I feel relaxed

This is what books mean to me

Music, by Divya Nedumaran, age 7

Music to my ears,

It’s something I always want to hear.

Music of different kinds.

There are many you can find.

Lots of different music notes,

Lots of songs I have wrote.

When you make up a song,

It is never, ever wrong.

I love music, it is fantastic!

To read the other winning poems and learn more about the BCA, visit www.booksmartcommunityadvantage.org/ or visit their Facebook page at www.facebook.com/booksmartcommunityadvantage.

Emily Shem-Tov is the vice president of Booksmart Community Advantage.