Blog thirty-one: a sweep through the Southwest

The view from the ranch in Taos.

I'm sat in my AirBnB in Pico-Union, Los Angeles. I've never been anywhere that reminds me more of the stretch of Radford Road outside Asda. It's strange to be in one of the world's most famous cities and all you can compare it to is your own little home corner of Nottingham. Lots has happened, both in terms of the time span since the last blog's content and my sitting on the beach in San Diego writing it, including my first proper Thanksgiving with my friend Kelly and her family, but I need to rewind a bit, back to New Mexico and catch you all up on the things I've done up to the Thanksgiving break around children's literacy and working with some awesome non-profits: Albuquerque Reads, Read on Arizona in Phoenix and Travelling Stories in San Diego. To start where we last left off, I'm in Taos after having spent the day with Eva at the DH Lawrence Ranch...

Taos, I admit, I loved. It had a style which I admired and brushed anything off with a shrug. It had its expensive tourist traps, but nowhere near as many as Santa Fe which I would visit the next day. After checking into my AirBnB I walked the mile back into town and headed for the historic plaza. It was 11^th November (which I feel very guilty about only writing up on the 27^th!) and there had been a Veterans’ Day parade. I saw the organisers taking down the small stage and the wreathes laid at the foot of the small memorial. I was reminded of trips to pay my respects at sites like Menin, Thiepval, Tyne Cot and the horrific death camp at Auschwitz earlier this year. To quote Franklin Roosevelt: “I hate war”. From here I watched the sun set over the adobe roofs and continued to wander until I chanced upon Brodsky Books, which has become my favourite bookstore of the trip. A quirky little space, it had a DH Lawrence section including one title “Lawrence: Oedipus in Nottingham”! I chatted with the owner and met his cat, Simone de Beauvoir de Taos, before buying a book on young FDR and heading to find some food – at the Taos Ale House. I may have had a few beers and servings of chilli cheese fries…

The next morning, I got the bus to Santa Fe – a rickety, no suspension ride through the bumpy roads of mountainous New Mexico. As we rode along, trying not to throw my coffee all over myself, I marvelled at the landscape of this incredible state. As we traversed through a canyon, in one of the rare moments I had any signal at all, I checked Google Maps for where we were to discover that the river we were driving beside was the Rio Grande, snaking its way through the rocks. This was probably the most special of the accidental iconic things I’ve done on the trip.

Meow Wolf's amazing walk-in fridge.

Santa Fe was somewhere I’d had on my list of places to visit for a while, since becoming interested in the later work of Georgia O’Keeffe when assisting on the development of a play about her. The O’Keeffe museum was my first stop where I arrived, after a breakfast of Heuvos Rancheros, of course. The collection of the museum is quite small with much of O’Keeffe’s most famous work elsewhere and often in private collections, but it was a good overview of the style of an artist who has come to define this part of the county with her landscapes and skulls – I’ve never been much of a fan of the flowers of her earlier New York work, though this was the first time I’ve seen some of her urban landscapes which I enjoyed. I wandered through town toward the old religious centre of Santa Fe – the plaza with its basilica, the Loretto chapel and the mission. The basilica reminded me of the Pugin cathedral we have at home in Nottingham with the Romanesque Revival interior, although with a distinct Latin feel as well. The Loretto was striking too with its incredible free-standing wooden spiral staircase, whilst the mission is the oldest church still standing in the United States. This was quite a corner for US heritage. After this I went for the entirely different, Meow Wolf, an art installation and experiential story-telling puzzle world in a converted bowling alley. From the seemingly ordinary confines of a suburban house I had to investigate the death of a young boy who may have been transported to another dimension. The set up was very cool – especially the part where I got to walk inside a fridge to another world beyond!

At my lodgings in Santa Fe, where I stayed with a British author and sculptor, Christopher, I met yet another Brit – who I never actually got introduced to and it got to the point where it was too rude to ask his name!! He offered me a lift back to Albuquerque and we talked in his hire care about his work as a school teacher in Acton. When I got to my motel – it had gotten to the stage in the trip where it definitely had to be laundry day as I was running out of pants.

Me and Pat from Albuquerque Reads at Bel-Air Elementary

The next day, I met Pat and Marianne from Albuquerque Reads outside Bel-Air Elementary on the north side of the city, not far from my motel and the Walmart I keep on doing all my shopping in. AR is a slightly different organisation to many that I’ve worked with on the trip as their funding model and organisation structure is rooted in the city’s Chamber of Commerce and is staffed, financed and administrated through this collective of local businesses. The session I would be working on is one of the long-standing Kindergarten reading programs and, as ever, I offered to jump in the deep end and read with some of the children. First up with the lively Tiago who once we settled down to reading took in loads and could tell me, in great detail, what had happened in the Little Red Hen book we were reading. Aaliyah, my second student, was less fidgety but enjoyed the reading less too. She came to life however when we got on to the letters and colouring exercise – a creative writer for the future, no doubt!

My day with AR was my last in New Mexico, a State which had a real impact on me. I’m not sure whether knowing the Lawrence connection and reading up on his experiences here had influenced this, especially reading extracts from Mornings in Mexico when I was I Taos. I’ve waffled a lot about NM and really hope I’ll be back, but it was time for me to head to Phoenix for a brief visit and to meet Read On Arizona.

Mine and Terri's speccy selfie at Read On Arizona.

Phoenix was sketchy. The motel I was staying in was rough, smelt funny and had everything – light switches, plugs etc. – in odd places. Sirens where an almost constant. But it was cheap and the best burrito I’d had up to that point was from the 24 Taco Stand less than 5-minutes’ walk away -  a walk I only did in day light. I met Read On at their funky offices across town. Terri, RO’s Executive Director, talked me through their work and the large-scale partnership of organisations that they try to coordinate and resource with best practice. Through this work, over the last 4 years there has been a 4% increase in children reading at grade level by 3^rd grade in the areas whether the program is running, although this has been a 1% rise in year 3 and a 3% rise in year 4, highlighting the importance of this being a long-term project, not a one-year flash in the pan. Terri also had a background in the film industry and had met her now husband on Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves! This was a very special handing over of a Robin Hood hat! The resource pack Terri shared with me I think will be able to support my work immeasurably when I get back and she’s offered to link me up with the academics she’s had check the workings and develop the model too. From the meeting with Terri I headed into Phoenix to check out their arts district – the aptly named Roosevelt Row and had a wander around in the heat of the desert city. With the area around my iffy motel not especially well lit, I didn’t stay out long and headed back, via the taco truck.

I was only in Phoenix for a day and the next morning it was back to the Greyhound Station (I have my final Greyhound tonight and that is a welcome statement!) to head to San Diego. I was hit with one of Greyhound’s ‘amazing’ quirks of the fact it only guarantees to get you to your destination, not on a set bus, and I was told that the bus I booked, via Yuma and Calexico, was full and I’d have to go via LA – meaning I wouldn’t get to the Mexican border and adding 4 hours to my trip! I wasn’t best pleased.

Me with Sarah, Hezhi and Chase at the National City Travelling Stories Story Tent

I arrived in San Diego late and jumped straight in an Uber to meet my host, Haroun, who had been a scholar back in 1977 and now lived in San Diego. He’d generously offered to put me up for my time in SD. I’ll get onto Haroun much more in my next post, which will focus on my time with him and up in Modesto for Thanksgiving, but after a quick supper, I headed to bed as I was working in the morning. The next day, Haroun (my ever-giving host) gave me a lift to National City where I’d be meeting Travelling Stories for their story tent session! In a gazebo in the San Diego sun, there was an oasis of books and volunteer reading tutors. The premise for Travelling Stories’ program is that children will either read books with the volunteers or telling the volunteers about the books they have read this week as a mini-report and receive, in return for their reading, “book bucks”. They could then exchange their book bucks for small gifts at the Travelling Stories commissary (a large crate full of cool gifts). I read with two children – Nourah, who didn’t like reading very much, or so she told me, and Anthony. Nourah, after some coaxing, read a book of nursery rhymes with me – although some I think she knew already and could sing them rather than read them properly. I then read her a book about a monkey that didn’t want to go to bed! Anthony was keener and picked out lots of non-fiction on history and biology, but needed quite a bit of help on his ambitious choices. Anthony even drew a picture of me and him reading a book on sharks in the tent, although heartbreakingly he wanted to take it home with him, so I had to make do with a photo.

I didn’t have much else booked in for San Diego literacy-wise except for a quick visit to their public library’s children’s area, which had a Godzilla exhibition and I read the chapter on FDR and Eleanor in their copy of the Champions of the Four Freedoms there. From SD I knew there would be some downtime – heading into Thanksgiving week – and then a more frantic final week in LA and San Francisco, where I’d be meeting with my final organisations including two 826 chapters and the national office too (I’m currently in the midst of this!) so, when I have a morsel of time, I’ll catch you all up on this too. Thanks for reading!

Blog thirty: a savage pilgrimage - Notts to New Mexico

"Smile, yer mardy bogger!" - me and Bert at the D H Lawrence Ranch.

So reader, I made it – my view currently from Woody’s Breakfast and Burgers in Pacific Beach, San Diego is of the small boardwalk, sand and the mighty Pacific Ocean rolling in in front of me. I don’t think I’ve ever been anywhere else which is as beautiful as an urban environment – this is no great National Park, it’s no Cliffs of Moher, but it is an incredible neighbourhood of surf shops, fish taco stalls and, most importantly independent coffee shops with WiFi and a view of the ocean! However, to catch you up I must venture back 1370 miles East, to 1800 Barnes Bridge Road, East Dallas, TX – where I last left you, at the start of my marathon to Taos, New Mexico on my “savage pilgrimage” to the American home of D H Lawrence, Eastwood’s purveyor of muckeh storehs and one of the counties greatest literary sons.

1800 Branes Bridge was where I was working with Miss Grace at the Arberg Centre and their Pre-K language sessions on a Thursday. My next stop, Albuquerque, was where I would like up with my contact Eva was my destination and Eva and I would meet at 9:30 on Saturday. Between then I was travelling, pretty much flat out! I first needed to catch a bus to the main transit interchange by Dealey Plaza in Downtown. Whilst waiting for this bus I met Steve – who to my great surprise had spent a year as a student living in Newark! He’d been through Nottingham but never really explored the city, however he had an intimate knowledge of Newark and the Morrisons! One thing I never thought would happen when sat on a bus in greater Dallas was discussing going to Newark Morrisons! Steve was great company and we had a lively conversation about US and UK healthcare and medicine, which was joined in with by two Hispanic ladies on their way to their lunch club. Experiences like this further convince me that public transport is THE ONLY WAY to see this amazing country and speak with people you’d never meet flying or driving!

Ratton and the New Mexico Countryside.

The bus dropped me back at Dealey Plaza allowing for a second look around at the grass knoll and I grabbed some new toothpaste from 7-11 (useful extra insight there, reader!). I then caught the local commuter train service from Dallas across the metroplex to Fort Worth. This again was another cool ride through the different areas of West Dallas, where I had been with Readers 2 Leaders, and into the other cities of this great metropolis – Arlington, Fort Worth and others. Fort Worth was where I’d get my first Amtrak up to Oklahoma City. This set off at dusk and I saw the sun setting over the East Texas cattle ranches and oil fields – another experience of the crazy rip that I’ll not soon forget. We arrived in OKC late and it was a mad dash for my connecting bus, which would take us from Oklahoma to Newton, Kansas – I say “us” there was me and one other guy who couldn’t drive as he had his license taken by Oklahoma State Police for driving marijuana over state lines from Colorado, where it is legal. A dark, middle of the night drive via Wichita, where I had a quick YouTube listen to Glen Campbell, I got Newton – where the weather was -2 Celsius! Here I’d wait for my next Amtrak, “The Southwest Chief”, all the way to Albuquerque. Pretty much from boarding I slept through the prairies of Kansas and woke up to the sun peeking through my little train window curtain and I was in southern Colorado. It was a misty morning in the Centennial State and this hung low over the ground new fully burning off as the train processed through the landscape toward the border town of Trinidad. From Trinidad the train would continue through the Ratton Pass (pronounced Rah-tone, not rat-on, which made many people give me funny looks). Emerging from the steep walled pass into New Mexico, the weather was changes and so to the scenery. The misty Colorado hills were replaced by yellow desert sands, ochre bluffs and pine green tufty shrubs under a burning sun. New Mexico had arrived. We traversed down through the old mining towns of Ratton, Las Vegas (New Mexico, not Nevada) and Lamy on an Amtrak that was forever stopping for little to no reason for 20-30 minutes at a time in a small siding. It appears that great swaths of the American Amtrak runs on a single track through some of these states, especially New Mexico, so any delay is compounded by the need to allow other trains going the other way to pass you as well if you’re of schedule even by a minute! I arrived into Albuquerque 2 hours late and got an Uber directly to the motel I was staying in before meeting Eva – I was knackered and crashed out pretty much as soon as I arrived.

Leaving ABQ.

The next morning, fuelled on motel coffee I met Eva. Eva works for the University of New Mexico, and administrates (amongst other things) the writers initiatives at the D H Lawrence Ranch. Taos, where the ranch is located is about 2 hours north of Albuquerque and when driving up through the passes and canyons of this incredible state, I was stuck, like Lawrence himself was, by the beauty of such a unique landscape. This was the setting of every Morricone, every Peckinpah Western I’d ever seen and I wanted a Fist Full of it. The mountain town of Taos, nestled under its namesake mountain, was another of those little gems which I feel should be added to the itinerary of every scholar! Especially with the literary Nottingham connection. 

The Sign!!

As we drove up into the mountain’s foothills and the pine forest that grows up in these higher climes, a sign told us we were only a few miles from the ranch, driving along D H Lawrence Road. As we pulled through the swing gate, the house shared by Freida and her third husband, Angelo Ravagli, after Bert’s death. Just a short walk round behind this newer house was the cottage in which Bert and Freida had lived in their years in Taos. On the porch sat a chair which Lawrence is reported to have made and painted, its position looking out into the meadow where I imagine the Lawrence’s beloved cow Susan would have grazed and nearby the shade offered by the “Lawrence Tree”, a tall majestic pine which featured in Lawrence work and in the paintings of Georgia O’Keeffe who was a later guest at the ranch. In the small, cold cottage the two rooms of a living space with a range and cosy twin bedroom gave some idea of what the quarters of the Lawrences would have been like and on the information signs there was a fun anecdote of Bert climbing, shirtless with a wet cloth covering his mouth and nose, onto the roof to clear a rats nest.

Lawrence's house.

Walking back to Freida and Ravagli’s house and heading up the hill in the opposite direction to the cottage is another winding concrete path leading, zig-zaggingly up toward a small chapel-like building, white against the green pines, with a phoenix resplendent atop it. Its large wooden doors, imposing against the white walls heavily creak open to a small chamber. To the left a bureau, a book and framed documents in French – the articles of D H Lawrence’s disinterment from his original burial in Vence, France. Lawrence it is variously claimed to have his final resting place here in Taos, after Ravagli was sent to France to bring Bert back to New Mexico so lie here, where Freida now lived. Many theories abound as whether this is really where Lawrence is buried, whether his remains went overboard on the journey from Europe, whether Ravagli drunkenly lost them, but the most enduring is that Frieda mixed the ashes with concrete foundations of the monument, to ensure he’d always remain here. The headstone-like marker inside the chapel building is simple, painted in the yellow hues of New Mexico and adorned with offerings from pilgrims, visitors – a pebble, a pine cone, coffee, chocolate – and hung above is a garland of chillies. It’s a profound and spiritual place. When I open the doors again, and look out, down the avenue of pines to the vista of the mountains across the canyon, it is clear why the Lawrences found this small corner of Northern New Mexico to be their own little slice of paradise.

The monument.

 Bert left Taos and his ranch from the last time on his 40^th birthday, 11^th September 1925. He would never return alive, only making the journey with Ravagli in 1935, 5 years after his death. In my journey across the US, especially as a writer from Nottingham, I found this to be the real spiritual heart of what I’ve done here on my travels. To place my pebble on the headstone, to sit quietly looking out on a view he once knew and to read my battered copy of Mornings in Mexico here was undeniably special. 

Blog twenty-nine: Memphis & Dallas - a tale of two cities

The Benjamin Hooks Library, Memphis.

Forgive me, readers, for I have slacked – it has been over a week since my last post, but it’s been some week. By the end of tomorrow I will have travelled, by Google’s estimation although the real number will be higher, 4,443 miles or 40.8 Nottingham to Londons. Also, this number doesn’t include the flight from Manchester, this is all buses, trains, taxis and lifts in the USA. I feel I owe you two blogs and I probably will split my progress up to now into two portions, so first up: Memphis and Dallas – a tale of two cities.

Memphis, I arrived into at about 3am where I’d be staying with AirBnB host and Air Force Veteran CC, who very accommodatingly allowed me to arrive at her place at such an ungodly hour of the morning and get some sleep. CC’s was a little way outside of downtown Memphis and as I discovered the public transport around the area were pretty poor on the weekend, so I resolved to have some chill out time, explore the neighbourhood rather than the city and walk the 2 miles or so on Sunday to the Benjamin Hooks Library in Binghampton which is the city’s main hub branch, named after the Civil Rights lawyer from Memphis Benjamin Hooks. Orange Mound, where I was staying, was a very diverse neighbourhood but was close to the university campus (it reminded me of Radford quite a bit) and boasted some great places to eat including Brother Juniper’s where I went for breakfast and the incredible Malia's Wings, where I really didn’t need to go and eat as I’d eaten fairly recently already but I was so glad I did! Malia’s was a trailer and BBQ smoker on a vacant lot by a bus stop with a few overhanging trees that hat been cut into for wood for the fire. The smell, the feel of the place and queue of locals (you knew they were local as they hadn’t driven so must have only lived in a few blocks radius!) marked this out as a must and the rib tips and slaw I had were sublime – some of the best food I’ve had on the trip! I was so full after my day of walking, exploring and eating, that I went back to CC’s and fell asleep!

Malia's. I'm getting hungry just looking at it...

Sunday, as I had mentioned, was my day to walk to the Library and I was impressed. The space was a four-storey glass building was some really cool sculptures outside, which looked like giant rollers, that had impressed into the concrete floor famous quotations, images and depictions of world cultures – including the first verse of Lewis Carroll’s Jaberwocky (a personal favourite). Inside the children’s library was easy to find and had much of the stuff I’d come to expect now from the fantastic library spaces in the US – including tree cloud beds for stuffed animals and another theatre/education space. I had a great wander round but then decided to hole up upstairs, use the wifi and browse their extensive history section. I read a chapter of a biography of Lyndon Johnson ahead of my trip to Texas!

The next day was my meeting with Knox, the director of Literacy Mid-South. LMS works across both adult and youth literacy and we had a great chat about the work they do, the data sharing arrangements they have with the city and the school board and the way that they broker partnership working with the voluntary sector, both when this works well and when it doesn’t – especially partners working unilaterally. This was probably one of the less exciting meetings to read about in this sort of a context but it was invaluable to talk with Knox about the issues in Memphis, which felt all too familiar for Nottingham, and the way that they coordinate delivery. Most of the other organisations I’ve met have been much more hands-on, delivery focused and doing that delivery themselves, but LMS in their children’s work are much more a coordinator and it was great to get this perspective.

The National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel, Memphis.

After meeting with Knox and another hat handover, I headed into Downtown Memphis to visit the National Civil Rights Museum at the former Lorraine Motel, the site where in 1968 Dr Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated. The motel has been kept looking as it did in the late 1960s and that I found to be the most moving part of the memorial and the museum. The outside also had very good and informative mini-video screens which gave some context Dr King, why he was in Memphis supporting the striking sanitation workers and the movement he had become the leader of. There was time for a last serving of Memphis style ribs and then I had to get the bus to the Megabus depot for my overnight trip to Dallas.

Dallas was again a tale of opposites – opposite sides of the massive metroplex that is the greater Dallas conurbation as I was working in projects on the East and West sides of the city. I arrived, bleary eyed, at around 6am and had to break my rule – I went to Starbucks, as nowhere else was open, it was cold and I was in serious need of a cup of coffee. I had until 3pm to check out downtown Dallas before I could check into my AirBnB so after my coffee and some napping in the corner of the coffee shop, like any enterprising literacy scholar would, I headed to the public library to see what their offer was. Dallas’ J. Erik Jonsson Central Library in Downtown is a very busy space as it acts as an informal day shelter for the city’s huge homeless population. When I was in the main areas the place was packed with people but usefully there seemed to be an accepted rule that these day users wouldn’t go onto the second floor where the children’s library was. It wasn’t as exciting as the other spaces, which admittedly had been recommended to me – it felt a little tired and the staff were understandably wary. There were no children in the place when I was there either, it made it feel very weird when compared to the bustle of the downstairs. After my browse in the library, I had a quick stop off at the grassy knoll and Dealey Plaza where JFK was assassinated in 1963 (this post is becoming a bit of a who’s who of assassinations of the 1960s).

Me and Cordaro at Readers 2 Leaders.

My first proper stop in Dallas was at the project Readers 2 Leaders, where I met with Audrey, their development associate. This again was another interesting conversation and one which focused mostly on data and accounting for progress of the children in the program. R2L’s program operates after-school in West Dallas and serves

After talking about the organisational structures with Audrey, I met with Lisa and Cordaro. Lisa was one of the senior tutors and runs the after-school program, which was on whilst I was there, and Cordaro was one of the students. Lisa and I chatted for a while about the history of the organisation and their structure, which was more regimented than some of the others I’d seen but was delivering results. Cordaro and I were then buddied up to do his reading assignment and he read Diary of a Wimpy Kid to me and we learnt the word “founder”. Usefully, Readers 2 Leaders have photo permissions for their young people too, so I was able to get a snap with Codaro and he got to wear the Robin Hood hat!

The next day saw me visit the Aberg Centre for Literacy in East Dallas, about an hour from where I was staying. Aberg is a program for the Hispanic community where pre-K children and their parents receive English tuition concurrently in adult and child classes. After meeting Shana, the program’s Executive Director, I was partnered with Miss Grace and her small class of 6-year olds and we spent the morning reading stories, talked about what their plans for thanksgiving might be, dressed up and did jigsaws. We even went to the sports hall and had a kick about. Aberg’s style I liked, especially the importance of play in the way that they worked and involvement of the parents in both the early play sessions, from 9-9:30 the parents are with some of the children before the parents’ English classes start, and the fact the parents get support in their literacy too.

Sunset over Fort Worth as I head out of the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex for New Mexico...

From Aberg I then began my longest trek, from East Dallas, Texas to Taos, New Mexico – a bus, tram, train, bus, train, taxi, car journey for 680 miles, including one-night sleeping on the train and one in a motel in Albuquerque, across Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado and New Mexico. My “savage pilgrimage” began. Read all about it next time!

Blog twenty-eight: meetings in St Louis & (Tenes)-seeing Dolly's Library

Me and Angie at the Dolly Parton Imagination Library HQ

Howdy, reader! When I last spoke to y’all I was heading through the cornfields of Iowa, when now I’m sat in the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains in what con only be described as Dixie Vegas or my own new favourite moniker for it, which I came up with yesterday, the “Blackpool” Appalachians – this pun will take some beating on this trip.  I’ve been from Iowa to Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky and across the great state of Tennessee. Pigeon Forge, where I am now, is the hometown of the first lady of Country and Western, Dolly Parton, and is home to Dollywood, her theme-park and home, which was the start of the springing up of some of the more eccentric things you’ll find on the main strip here.

But, to begin at the beginning and my trip to Alton, Illinois and St Louis. Alton seems a bit of a leftfield choice of a stop, but I was here to meet and stay with my grandfather’s cousin, Tina and her husband David. Tina and I had never met so I was unsure who I was looking for when I got to the parking lot of the Greyhound Station – her Facebook profile picture is of her corgi Dylan. But we found each other fine and 30 minutes later we were in a diner/micro-brewery in Alton having dinner with her friend Marcy. Tina is a real animal lover and has two dogs and “several” cats – Alton has a by-law which limits the number of cats you can have, so I’ll not say exactly how many! I spent one day just chilling in Alton and walked along the river. The next day, I went into St Louis on the train and headed to the neighbourhood of Brentwood to meet the Little Bit Foundation.

Me and Ashley at Little Bit in St Louis.

It was amazing to see the work which Little Bit does – their model was so a complete, 360-degree, all-encompassing one which, when it saw a need, took steps to combat it. When they identified that many children were not staying at fixed addresses, often moving between parents, aunts, grandparents, then they gave these children large wheel-y backpacks that could fit much more than just their school belongings in. When it was seen that children sometimes came to school with their clothes unwashed, they put washers and driers, plus provided detergent, in schools. They found the Zoe Zookeeper book, a program run by Boots Opticians and The National Literacy Trust, very interesting and, as they are developing STEM programs, I said I’d put them in touch with the wonderful Rick at Ignite!

The Literacy programs, when compared to the other organisations I had visited were more modest – book fairs in schools and community settings and a fun pre-K to 2^nd Grade program, Books and Buddies, where the class would get a whole class set of books with a paired stuffed animal (a book about a bear with a bear, a dog with a dog) and these would rotate around the class (animal and book) until the whole class had read the lot and then they could chose a favourite book and buddy to take home.

After another night in Alton with the amazingly welcoming Tina and David, I headed back to the bus station to go across the country yet again – this time covering 497 miles in a day, with a stop off at a public library! From St Louis I travelled through the countryside to Nashville! And did I go to the Country Music Hall of Fame? No! I went to the library, and I’m so glad I did. Nashville Public Library is currently US Library of the Year and it is a title well deserved.

The Reading Fort at Nashville Public Library.

The Nashville Public Library’s Children’s Library is one of the most special children’s learning spaces I’ve ever been to – and got the guided tour from Frieda, one of the librarians. The space is huge and is filled with incredible things for children to do beyond just reading the books – however important that is! Like Chicago it has spaces within the bookshelves for the children to crawl through, a climbing wall surrounded by crash mats on one wall and in the centre a “reading fort” which is modelled on the Nashville skyline (I feel a Dylan song coming on…). They also had a large teen section, housed in a part of the library at the opposite end to the children’s library. I liked this separation and the feel in the teen section was very different to the other teen areas which had been contained in children’s/youth section in other places. Here there was games consoles, chill-out spaces and study booths plus an incredible maker space. In the fully staffed space there were three kitted out recording studio booths, a music area, green screen, a video lab, an engineering-design bench and several 3D printers. I met Megan, one of the staff working with the young people there after school that day, and we chatted about the space, how many young people come in and use it and games narrative design – she loved the idea behind Nottingham Libraries and the NVA’s Story Smash!

Sadly, I couldn’t stay longer in Nashville as my connecting bus to Knoxville was departing soon, and 3 hours and 1-time zone later. I arrived in East Tennessee. This wasn’t the end of my travel that day, however – a quick Uber-ride from Knoxville and I was in Pigeon Forge in neighbouring Sevier County: the home of Dolly Parton! This is also where my first real mishap of this trip happened as I got drop at what I thought was my motel for this night at about 12:30am, only to find I was at the wrong Rodeway Inn (there were two) and mine was 2 miles further down the road! After a brisk 40-minute walk though I was checked-in and tucked up for some well-earned sleep!

The Smoky Mountains in fall (not my picture, but it looked like this). Image courtesy of Visit Gatlinburg.

The next day was my meeting with the Dolly Parton Imagination Library – a program which has been running in Nottingham for a while now and we are one of the largest centres for the scheme in the UK. I met with Angie, who is the Library’s International Director, to talk about how the program works and the successes it has had. I also presented her with a lovely hardback edition of the Stories of Robin Hood on behalf of the thousands of children in Nottingham who have received books from the program and a letter from Councillor David Mellen, who has been a tireless supporter of the Imagination Library, thanking them for the difference they are making to children's literacy in the city.

This was a slightly different meeting than many of my others as we’re already running the program back home and, in the way that the international model works, the surrounding support is delivered by the local partner, rather than from Dolly’s team here in Tennessee. Small Steps, Big Changes who run Nottingham’s program locally are doing brilliant work and Angie told me of a few other Dolly clusters which are doing interesting and engaging support work with families. One different between the US and UK versions currently is that in every US book, there are specially printed inner flaps on the book dust-jacket with information and reading support tips for parents. This is currently only available on 2 books per age-bracket in the UK as it is too expensive on the scale of the programs, so one way we can help families to gain this extra support is by helping get more children signed up to the library, which you can do here! Sadly, I was unable to meet Dolly herself – she had a big show opening the next day and had a sponsors’ lunch, which was $5k a ticket, that I wasn’t allowed to sneak into, which was fair enough. I did leave with plenty of cool gifts from the library, including the great lady’s autograph!

Now I’m heading out West to Memphis – I’ve enjoyed my time in Tennessee, Missouri and Southern Illinois and it has been good to get out of liberal eastern metropolitan university environments. I’ve seen a different America (no better, no worse) and had much more interesting conversations with people, like trying to explain Northern Ireland to a guy on the Greyhound! Trump had to come from somewhere and when you see places that have been left behind and disillusionment has been left to fester, a demagogue can take root. America has problems – but we cannot be naive enough to believe we don’t in the UK. Race has been a very pronounced divide here and that, whilst I knew it was heartbreakingly the case, I still struggle when I go to schools in deprived areas or meet children who are being supported by these projects and the make-up of the groups is strikingly un-diverse and often overwhelmingly African-American. Class and privilege are barriers which we need to destroy back home, but race, here, further compounds it. Please don’t think I feel that we don’t have systemic problems for BAMER communities in the UK – WE DO – but I know in Nottingham, at least, we’re doing better than much of what is provided for diverse and non-white communities are getting here without the interventions of some incredible organisations that I’ve been lucky enough to meet and work with. Sorry for getting political – next stop, Memphis: home of the National Civil Rights Museum.