A Little Village teacher's back-porch library

Apr. 25, 2013
Rachel Perveiler said La Biblioteca Del Personas promotes literacy and teaches responsibility.

Teachers engage teens with realistic fiction, 'street literature'

Jun. 15, 2012
Front and Center visited classrooms around Chicagoland to hear what gets teens excited about reading.Amy Correa teaches sixth and seventh grade at Agassiz Elementary School in Chicago.

A high school confronts its reading struggles head on

Jun. 1, 2012
Poverty and safety are some of Fenger High School's major concerns. Reading is another.

A first grade focus on knitting, not phonics

May. 31, 2012
In a sunny classroom, first graders at the Chicago Waldorf School are not picking up books. Instead, in every student’s hands are two wooden knitting needles. Waldorf teaches kids the mechanics of reading years later than most U.S. schools.

Adults without literacy: 48-year-old man learns to read

May. 29, 2012
By some estimates, as many as one in eight American adults has extreme difficulty reading and writing. Here, WBEZ profiles a man who spent the last three years trying to escape illiteracy. 

The Don't-Miss List: A special Richard Pryor event

Dec. 15, 2011
Kelly KleimanElizabeth Rex: The late Canadian novelist/playwright Timothy Findley teased every dramatic possibility out of the fact that Shakespeare's company performed for the mis-described Virgin Queen on the eve of the exec

Author Patricia McNair mines Midwestern roots for inspiration

Dec. 6, 2011
New Hope is a fictional place but thanks to Patricia Ann McNair, it’s a place full of pain, heartbreak, faith and friendship. New Hope is the setting of The Temple of Air – the latest collection of stories from McNair.

Mind-bending sci-fi books for a fantastical summer

Jun. 14, 2011
Publishers like to throw around the term "speculative fiction," but you won't see too many fans of the genres it comprises — fantasy and science-fiction — bandying it about. For one thing, it's redundant; all fiction speculates, or it isn't fiction.

Pages