RICHMOND, Va. — Thursday marked another special day for the highly motivated readers at Fairfield Court Elementary School. This time it was all smiles because of the thoughtful gift from a generous author.
Through our parent company's Give a Child A Book campaign, our generous viewers, and Renewal by Andersen, we've been able to provide 10 free books in each of the last two years to students at Fairfield Court.
Bestselling children's author Dav Pilkey joined in on the giving by donating a copy of his last "Dogman" book to every student.
More than 130 elementary students piled into the cafeteria as CBS 6 anchors GeNienne Samuels and Bill Fitzgerald shared the big surprise.
The Dog Man series of books is a children's favorite so Pilkey's generosity with Big Jim Begins was joyously received.
Last summer we raised nearly $20,000 through the Scripps Howard Fund's Give a Child a Book campaign enabling all students at both Fairfield Court Elementary and J.B. Fisher Elementary to all receive 10 free books across their schools' winter and spring book fairs. This year, Pilkey made that count 11 for both schools.
Students at Fairfield Court said their love of reading helps them whether they're happy or sad.
"Sometimes reading is fun. It's fun to read... Because sometimes, when I'm sad, I sometimes take a book and just start reading it," said second-grader Jerusalem, who was interviewed by both Bill and GeNienne.
She did exceptionally well with the interview, even though English is her second language. Jerusalem is new to Fairfield Court and to the English language.
When asked why she was excited to receive another book to add to her library, she replied in Hebrew.
GeNienne asked, "Can you translate that for us? What did you just say?"
"I said, 'I'm excited because I love reading a lot,'" she replied.
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