Bring a Beloved Author to the Bronx!

Hello! My name is Jake Ehrlich and I am a fifth-grade English Language Arts teacher in the Allerton neighborhood of the Bronx, NYC. My students are bright, charismatic, lovable, hilarious, hard-working, powerful, and deserving of the best I have to offer them - and more. I give them everything I have every day, but sometimes I need to reach out to the community to give them that little bit extra.

This year we read an incredible book titled Finding Langston. This book is the emotional story of a young African-American boy from Alabama named Langston who copes with the death of his mother and adapts to a new city by going to the Chicago Public Library and reading the poetry of Langston Hughes. Because my students loved this book so much, I acquired copies of the two companion books, Leaving Lymon and Being Clem, which tell the stories of two background characters from Finding Langston. The students are currently reading these books and enjoying them very much.

I recently had the thought that it would be amazing to bring the author of these books, Lesa Cline-Ransome, to my school to meet and talk with my students. I did some research and made some inquiries. It turns out that Lesa is able to come and speak to my students (as well as many others in the building). Unfortunately, the funding is not available from my school at this time to pay her fee. Rather than give up, I thought it would be worthwhile to pursue alternative means to acquire funding, which brought me here to GoFundMe.

I know it would make my students' whole year to get to meet this author. It would inspire them and show them that they too can achieve amazing things like writing and publishing a book. It would deepen their love and excitement for reading. Asking Lesa questions about her thinking and writing process will be educational and informative. In short, this could be an incredible experience for some incredible kids.

Finally, I don't think the value of introducing the author of this particular book to my students can be overstated. Finding Langston is about a boy who finds solace in a public library, an institution that is too frequently subjected to defunding and closure. I know that meeting Lesa will inspire my students to continue on the literary path and become the readers and book-borrowers of the future.

Thank you for considering donating to make this dream of mine a reality!

Sincerely,

Jake