The Reading Council of Greater Winnipeg (RCGW) has been dedicated to promoting literacy and developing lifelong readers since 1956. We have a proud history of being a literacy leader in Winnipeg and its surrounding area. We are a Special Area Group of Educators (SAGE) of the Manitoba Teachers' Society and a local council of the International Literacy Association.
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RCGW provides professional development for educators, shares resources and ideas on our website, celebrates I Love to Read month, promotes literacy in the community, honours literacy leaders and up-and-coming teacher candidates, and supports literacy projects. Join RCGW today!
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Written by Jon Sorokowski and Carol Hryniuk-Adamov February has long been recognized in Manitoba as I Love to Read Month under the leadership of the province’s reading councils. For several decades, the Reading Council of Greater Winnipeg and the Manitoba Reading Association have promoted this month-long celebration of reading in response to the International Reading Association’s call in the early 1980s to host events in February to foster a love of reading. RCGW’s president Dr. Bev Zakaluk established the province’s first I Love to Read Day in February 1980. In 1984, the Honourable Pearl McGonigal, Manitoba’s first female lieutenant governor, invited Grade 3 students from Birds’ Hill School to share stories and enjoy refreshments in the Manitoba Legislative Building’s Blue Room. The Lieutenant Governor presented them with a book bound in red velvet containing stories the students had written. “I will never forget that day we spent with Her Honour,” one student shared. “I think she liked us as much as we liked her!” The mid-80s saw RCGW join forces with the Winnipeg Public Library and Manitoba School Library and Audio-Visual Association (now the Manitoba School Library Association) to host exciting community events at the Eaton Place Mall and Centennial Library. The collaborative events, held yearly between 1987 and 1989, were opened by local dignitaries and welcomed hundreds of children, parents, teachers and librarians who participated in reading activities and enjoyed the wonderful entertainment. The vibrant energy of I Love to Read Month continued to rise in the early 90s. RCGW published its first I Love to Read Month Idea Calendar to coincide with the International Year of Literacy in 1990. RCGW also hosted Manitoba’s Biggest Read-In at The Forks, where 300 students participated in person and over 10,000 students participated in their own communities. In 1991, Polo Park Mall hosted a very festive I Love to Read Day. The entire shopping centre was decorated, with over 1,400 children and their family members taking part in the celebration’s many activities and workshops. The Province of Manitoba has recognized or proclaimed February as I Love to Read Month for many years. In 1997, the Honourable Premier Gary Filmon launched the Premier’s Reading Recognition Certificate, encouraging children in Grades 2 and 3 to set a goal to increase how much they would read. Many education ministers have since taken time in February to acknowledge the importance of literacy and highlight special events. Over the years, RCGW also has coordinated outreach campaigns to promote the love of reading. One year, RCGW invited educators to order special I Love to Read Month buttons, while another year the committee launched a bus shelter poster campaign to promote the importance of reading with loved ones. More recently, RCGW has donated books to the Children’s Hospital Cancer Care Unit so that children and youth have access to affirming and inspiring books during their stay at the hospital. Today, many educators honour I Love to Read Month by hosting celebrations of literacy and welcoming guest readers into their classrooms. It is common to spot local celebrities — including Winnipeg Jets players and radio station hosts — reading their favourite picture books to young children in classrooms throughout the month of February. The Manitoba Reading Association has a committee that takes the lead on selecting a yearly theme to focus I Love to Read Month efforts, while the Reading Council of Greater Winnipeg continues to produce its very popular annual idea calendar. Many schools build on these ideas and host their own book drives and special events. Through these continued efforts, dynamic partnerships, and the ongoing dedication of thousands of educators across Manitoba, I Love to Read Month will continue to advance the Manitoba Reading Association’s vision of “Every Manitoban a Literate Manitoban” and nurture in all readers a lifelong love of reading. This year's I Love to Read Month theme is Moving Forward with Hope.
Share the Reading Council of Greater Winnipeg's Idea Calendar today! Congratulations to Nicola Wedderburn, who was recently appointed Interim Executive Director of the International Literacy Association. Wedderburn has worked for ILA for 10 years, most recently as Director of Business Development. She is the first Black woman and the youngest person to serve as Executive Director of ILA.
For more information, please see ILA's press release. Dear RCGW Members, “I Love to Read Month” is a month-long celebration that is held each year in February to encourage reading, writing, and sharing in the joy of literacy. This year’s theme is “Moving Forward with Hope.” This theme is meant to help readers understand different perspectives, develop compassion and move through these challenging times with empathy. As the world around us begins to recover, we too, need to move forward with renewed optimism as we forge a path of healing and reconciliation. On behalf of the Reading Council of Greater Winnipeg, I have prepared the idea calendar below. The RCGW is a group of dedicated educators who meet monthly to share and work to promote knowledge and awareness of lifelong literacy and learning. Please share the idea calendar with teachers, students and their families. It would make a great addition to your school newsletter. Activities are included for students of all ages to have them explore different ways of engaging with literacy. I hope that both teachers and students will have fun with the suggested activities and that they will challenge the students to learn something new. I also hope that families will be able to share the excitement of reading and writing together. In addition to the idea calendar, the RCGW will be making a book and monetary donation to the Cancer Care Unit at the Children’s Hospital so that the staff can continue to update their children’s and teens’ libraries and magazine subscriptions. This provides children, teens, as well as parents with reading materials that are appealing and entertaining, as well as supportive. The RCGW thanks you for sharing this idea calendar with teachers and families. In doing this, you are helping to empower our students to change the world. Brittany Bell I Love to Read Committee Chair Reading Council of Greater Winnipeg The Manitoba Council of Reading Clinicians is pleased to present Wiley Blevins, who will deliver a two-evening virtual workshop, A Fresh Look at Phonics: Common Causes of Failure and Seven Ingredients for Success, January 19 & 20, 2022. RCGW members are also members of the Manitoba Reading Association, and so the special member rate of $30 applies. For more information and to register, please see the poster below or visit MCRC's website. In a special feature for the holidays, RCGW Past President and Member-at-Large Carol Hryniuk Adamov suggests several delightful cookbooks to help you relax and reconnect with your culinary side. As the winter holidays approach, my mind turns to shopping and cooking up a storm for the upcoming winter celebrations. Browsing new and cherished cookbooks has had a lot of therapeutic value for me, and it has evoked many personal, family, and neighbourhood memories. My very favourite cookbook is Traditional Ukrainian Cookery by Savella Stechishin. My family gave me this book when I left home in 1975, and it remains one of my most prized possessions. It provides guidance on how to make all the classic Ukrainian dishes, including the 12 dishes for Christmas Eve and the heavenly breads like Paska, Babka, and Kolach. I am bonded for life with my Traditional Ukrainian Cookery, as it helped me ground my culinary heritage. Yet how did I function with a lack of photos? I had to imagine the recipes, using all my senses to recall each dish from my family’s cooking. There were a few illustrative photos, such as designs for braiding on paskas and some pen and ink illustrations of scenes in Ukraine. While the cookbook is now out of print, used copies can be found online. Stechishin was one of the first Ukrainian Canadian women to study at the University of Saskatchewan in the 30s, receiving her BA in Home Economics. She was a feminist in her unique way and did much to enrich the culinary landscape of Canada and the role of women in the Ukrainian Canadian community. Traditional Ukrainian Cookery's publisher – Winnipeg's Trident Press, which closed in 1995 – also produced the Ukrainian Voice. Our family was happy that Mrs. Stechishin shared her favourite recipes in the weekly newspaper, and many were shared as an oral tradition or by simple demonstration in our extended family of great cooks and bakers. Her cookbook recipes ultimately continue to be shared in families and adapted in newer cookbooks across North America. There appear to be many new Slavic cookbooks sprouting like mushrooms after the rain. Here are several to help you prepare for gift buying or treating yourself to a new book. In exploring these cookbooks, I came to realize that simply browsing these new cookbooks had a lot of therapeutic value for me during the pandemic. A dear friend brought to my attention two popular new Ukrainian cookbooks, Mamushka and Summer Kitchens, from award-winning British author and chef Olia Hercules. Mamushka earned the Ukraine-born Hercules the significant Fortnum and Mason Award for debut cookbook in 2018. She lived in Cyprus before becoming a British chef, and her cuisine may even be one of the reasons for Ukrainian cooking becoming so “hot” in England! She has introduced the rich range of Ukraine’s cuisine to many and has drawn attention to our collectively evolving culinary heritage. Check out Hercules's online presence: She has posted several informative online cooking workshops and webinars that have been entertaining and educational. Mamushka and Summer Kitchens are more than a collection of hundreds of delicious recipes – they are also culinary travelogues of contemporary Ukraine and Eastern Europe. Hercules weaves a tapestry of personal stories and powerful images of the beautiful country from the Black Sea to the Carpathian Mountains and beyond. She provides creative versions of recipes for both common and new comfort foods. These cookbooks have expanded my view of Ukrainian cookery beyond the usual Canadian–Ukrainian favourites. They are helping me reconnect with dormant culinary memories from my own experiences. For instance, summer kitchens were very popular before the advent of air conditioning in rural Ukraine and on the Canadian prairies. These unique structures, built outside of the main home, were special places where the cooks prepared food and canned preserves in the hot summer weather. As a child, I loved spending time with the older women who cooked, told stories, and sometimes sang as they transformed their homegrown produce into memorable, savoury dishes and jams. I would serve as their “scrubber” for the cucumbers and their official taster for the rich raspberry jams. The gorgeous photos in Summer Kitchens evoked the memories of the delectable aroma of these special culinary places I had visited in Ukraine and rural Manitoba in my youth. I wondered how many summer kitchens now remain on the Canadian Prairies... While browsing through this plethora of new Ukrainian and Eastern European cookbooks, I initially came across a wonderful Polish book called Rose Petal Jam: Recipes & Stories from a Summer in Poland, written by Beata Zatorska and her husband Simon Target. Rose Petal Jam, recognized as one of the best current cookbooks and awarded the distinguished Gourmand Award, combines Zatorska's childhood memories of Poland and her family’s culinary heritage. As I grew up in the North End, some of our close friends on Stella Avenue were Polish, and over time, I developed an affinity for Polish culture and cooking. I am so glad to have discovered this beautiful cookbook. Zatorska skillfully braids her memories of her youth in the rural areas of Poland, treasured family recipes for sixty traditional meals, snippets of songs, and inspirational Polish poetry translated into English. Target took extraordinary photographs that capture the picturesque beauty of summer in many parts of Poland. Zatorska and Target have truly raised the literary bar for a cookbook as a genre for me. They also collaborated on another extraordinary volume called Sugared Orange: Recipes & Stories from a Winter in Poland, which explores the winter season in Poland and the cycle of winter feasts to prepare for in one’s kitchen. I have begun to appreciate both Polish–Ukrainian culinary similarities and differences. Zatorska includes excerpts of rich literary texts from various genres, while Target’s photography captures the particular beauty of winter feasts and the Polish landscapes. One criticism is that the font for the recipes is too small and light. I hope that they change the font in future editions to make it more legible for aging chefs. The travelogue quality of two fine cookbooks has triggered dreams about a future trip to Eastern Europe after Covid subsides. Another newer Slavic cookbook that has received a lot of attention and some rave reviews for providing knee-tapping humour alongside creative and traditional recipes: Baba’s Kitchen: Ukrainian Soulfood with Stories from the Village. It has unique qualities that include Baba's hilarious stories from the village –written in a Baba dialect. These chef-authors have touched my heart deeply, and their writing has transported me to the homeland of my family members and dear North End neighbours. Their tomes do a marvellous job of capturing the dynamic interrelationships between the land as text and the delicious cuisine of various countries in Eastern Europe. They elevate Eastern European cuisine from hearty peasant cookery to sophisticated gourmet fare. Just browsing these fine cookbooks served as a form of bibliotherapy for me during lockdown. I am also tempted to do more oral storytelling and perhaps write more personal narratives in the future because of these cookbooks. I have come to realize how the aromas of the traditional dishes I have cooked evoke long-dormant memories and stories of my parents, who also taught me some of the basics of cooking in our little kitchen on Stella Avenue. As we begin to gather again, my family has requested that I prepare more of these dishes for them to sample at dinner! I cherish nostalgic pre-holiday visits to the North End to shop. I look forward to visiting Gunn’s Bakery on Selkirk Avenue and meat stores on Main and McGregor Streets and Bannerman Avenue to purchase Winnipeg versions of the kolachi/koileches (braided egg breads), Polish poppy seed rolls, and other delectable desserts, as well as the cuts of marvelous meat to cook, barbecue, and serve on a charcuterie platter. Visit your favourite local bookstore to explore these fine cookbooks as potential holiday presents for the culinary aficionados in your family or as treats for yourself. Contact another foodie friend and take a trip to some of these great Winnipeg stores.
We are approaching a well-deserved period of rest this holiday season. The Reading Council of Greater Winnipeg's executive is looking forward to speaking time with friends and family and curling up with some of our favourite things – books. Our list below includes titles the RCGW executive thinks would make great gifts this holiday season, whether for loved ones or as a bit of a treat for yourself. Also, be sure to check out the Manitoba Young Readers' Choice Award (MYRCA) titles. They're always a hit with young readers. The titles below link to McNally Robinson or other Canadian publishers. Happy reading! Kindergarten to Grade 2
Grade 3–5
Grade 6–8
Grade 9–12
Books for Adults
Professional Reads
PD Opportunity for Members: Centering Indigenous-Land Based Education with Tasha Spillett-Sumner11/11/2021
The Reading Council of Greater Winnipeg is excited to announce a special, members-only after-school webinar on November 30, 2021, with local author, scholar, and educator Tasha Spillett-Sumner. Best known for her graphic novel series Surviving the City and the New York Times and CBC Books best seller I Sang You Down from the Stars, Spillett-Sumner is currently working on her PhD in education through the University of Saskatchewan, where she holds a Vanier Canada Award. In this after-school webinar, Spillett-Sumner will discuss Centering Indigenous Land-Based Education. The webinar is FREE for RCGW and MRA members! See the poster below for more information on how to register. We can't wait to learn more about writing with Karen Filewych and over 350 teachers tomorrow – Friday, October 21, 2021! The Zoom link for our #MTSPDDay session with Karen was sent earlier this week to registrants. See you tomorrow online! If you haven't received your Zoom link, please check your junk mail or contact Jackie at [email protected]. In Case You Missed It...Congratulations to McNally Robinson Booksellers on their 40th anniversary! We are so fortunate to have Canada's largest independent bookseller in our community.
McNally Robinson for Kids shared on Twitter that they will be extending their 25% educators' discount for MTS PD Day until Sunday, October 24. Shopping must be done in-person at the Grant Park location and the discount applies only to books in stock. Might we suggest some of the latest MYRCA titles? Happy Book Shopping! |
Next MeetingsMeetings are open to all members. Please consider attending!
SubmissionsWe welcome short book reviews, articles about teaching strategies, and other submissions. Please contact the Editor.
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