The Power of Story

Life’s abuzz for bees at present—they continually zip from flower to flower, blooms to hive and back again. It’s enough to make your wings droop.

When gathering gets gargantuan, Clover finds comfort in a book, a marvelous, uncomplicated pick-me-up that pleases but never interrupts.

Bountiful benefits can be reaped from reading, so Clover’s hoping you’ll let “The Power of Story” take over this summer, and ease away too-muchness. Solace seeps into the soul with books as your best friend.

Page On—enjoy!

The Community Literacy Foundation, in partnership with Neighborhood Reads, and with support from its sponsors, provides these books at no cost to 34 schools in Washington, Union, Pacific, St. Clair and surrounding communities and to the Washington Public Library. Learn more at CommunityLiteracyFoundation.org.

Youngest Read

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the publication of “Winnie-the-Pooh,” by A.A. Milne.

A new book, “How a Bear Became a Book,” celebrates the birth of the classic, offering details about the collaboration between the book’s author, illustrator and editors. This subject could have been tiresome but in author Annette Bay Pimentel’s hands, the story is playful and fun.

The book is told as an extended conversation between a boy named Christopher Robin and Winnie, a pudgy golden bear that pops out of a book. Winnie wonders how a story about him came to be and Christopher invites his friend to join him and find out as they journey through the book, illustrations of beloved characters from “Winnie-the-Pooh” making guest appearances.

Trying to find an illustrator for the classic “Winnie-the Pooh” took a lot of work. Drawings were submitted by many because “pictures show what’s not in words,” Christopher explains, to which Pooh quips, “I like the sound of pictures.”

Young readers will delight in his crowd pleaser, winsomely illustrated by Faith Pray, who does the trail-blazing classic proud proving that “words and pictures” work best when they “dance together.”

Buy the book at Neighborhood Reads

Middle Read

An old man, age 102, reflects on an incident that happened to him in the picture book “102,” written and illustrated by award-winning Matthew Cordell.

This creative pick will have readers wondering if the story the old man tells is real or is it just a fever dream.

When he was boy, George, discovered a mouse in their kitchen at 102 Greenbriar Dr. with a black bean in its “tiny teeth.” Appalled, his mother wants it gone, but her son convinces her to let him keep it in a tank that once housed an unknown occupant.

George cares for the mouse but then gets sick with 102 fever—his mother tucks him in bed and George falls asleep. It’s then that the story turns into a fantastical tale that involves George shrinking down to the size of a mouse and being led on a hairbrained quest to find the mouse.

Journeying through tunnels and tall grasses, George meets friendly insects and avoids an attack by an owl, finally arriving at the mouse’s home inside the base of a tree at 102 Acorn Hollow. At that address, the quest ends and the brilliantly clever mystery is revealed in a book by a master of storytelling and art.

Buy the book at Neighborhood Reads

Oldest Read

Readers meet a true blue mechanical buddy in “The Second Life of Snap,” a sweet story with a message by award-winning author Erin Entrada Kelly.

When Zuzu Santos is 12, she’s introduced to a Secure Network Android Processor, better known as SNAP, a droid her father Beany receives from Lockwood, the company he works for that manufacturers robots—until they suddenly terminate his employment.

Zuzu and Beany live in a future world comprised of the very rich and very poor where humans depend on robots to do everything from driving cars to cooking.

Zuzu and Beany are “lower working class,” and live in a tin camper in Bright Valley, an area once green but now desolate due to rising temperatures and dust storms. Others around them also suffer the strain of not having enough—quite the opposite from the townspeople of Bountiful, where it’s beautiful and everyone is prosperous.

Now that Beany’s going to be job hunting, Beany believes SNAP would be a perfect “guardian” for his daughter. Zuzu rails against the idea, but the decision is made. SNAP will babysit Zuzu and help with her lessons—at least that’s the plan until Zuzu’s techy friend Elias takes his screwdriver to SNAP’s connector. The outcome changes SNAP into a gadget with a big heart and big feelings.

There’s fun to be had with SNAP for a friend and fixes that might make life better for Zuzu, Elias and the rest of the Valleycats, a gang of kids in like circumstances who stick together like glue.

“The Second Life of SNAP” is certain to keep kids engaged -- a book that’s entertaining but also a cautionary tale about AI and global warming.

Buy the book at Neighborhood Reads

Written by Chris Stuckenschneider.

Copyright 2026, Community Literacy Foundation.