It’s time for a road trip!

Reading Across America

It was September 1805 when Lewis and Clark ran out of food in the Bitterroot Mountains, butchered their horse for dinner, and sadly named a nearby stream, “Hungry Creek.” Surely they thought they would die. But exactly 200 years later, the students at Timber Ridge Middle School in Plainfield, Illinois, reading about the adventurers’ journey, gave them some help.

John Piechocinski, Timber Ridge’s head custodian, leads an annual NEA’s Read Across America program in which students count the pages they’ve read as miles in a journey. Last year, as they added up pages, Piechocinski added up miles and moved Lewis and Clark across a map in a school hallway. One year, they took a virtual trip to every ballpark in America. “We get parents involved, the community involved, and the kids really enjoy it,” says Piechocinski.

This year, NEA’s Read Across America, a yearlong, nationwide initiative to promote reading, will celebrate Read Across America Day on March 2. For more information, book lists, and resources to use in the classroom, go to the Read Across America website.

Illustration: Lance LeKander and Kris Wiltse