Students at Welsh-Roanoke (WAR) Junior High School in Jeff Davis Parish will soon have a new reason to enjoy reading.

Last spring, school librarian Shanna Gillett applied for a $1,500 grant through the Dollar General Youth Literacy. She recently received word that she was one of 22 teachers in Louisiana and the only one from Southwest Louisiana chosen to receive the grant.

Gillett, a former English teacher who has been the school’s librarian for five years, plans to use the grant to order new juvenile and youth books from the (John) Newbery Medal Awards list. The annual award is presented to authors of the best contribution to American books for children.

Gillett will be able to use the award money to purchase new books to replace aging books in the current Newbery collection.

Her vision is to redo a section in the library to display the new copies. She hopes to debut a “Newbery New Year” in January to introduce more students to books on the list of Newbery authors.

“I have a space in my library that I was ready to reimagine and remodel, so when this Dollar General literacy grant opportunity came,” Gillett said. “I thought if I could get the grant I could order a fresh copy of all the Newberys and remodel that space to have a highlighted Newbery award winning section.”

Gillett said many of the Newbery books in the school’s collection, including Red Badge of Courage, Where the Red Fern Grows and Julie of the Wolves, are old and need to be replaced.

“With our limited budget, kids still want us to order the new books so you kind of feel obligated to buy those, but a lot of our Newbery books are starting to look old and shabby,” she said. “Even if the story is wonderful, the books are no longer attractive to them.”

Replacing the older books with new books will make the more attractive for the kids, she said.

“Julie of the Wolves is a great little book but nobody is picking it up,” Gillett said. “My goal is to have a whole brand-new Newbery section filled with books that kids will want to pick up.”

The new books will be more visually appealing to the students with redesigned and brighter covers and fresh pages to turn.

“Anytime you get to have something new, that will attract more students to the library that is a win for the students and the school because we know that the more they read the better off they will be academically and socially,” Gillett said. “Our goal is to build a lifelong reader, so if we can get them in the door and get them reading, that will be one step in the right direction.”

“We know reading dips after elementary and middle school is where we lose them,” she continued. “We’re hoping to lessen that impact and keep them interested whether that’s putting in a new display or adding more graphic novels which has been my focus the last couple of years.”

As a librarian Gillett said she wants to make the library more attractive and make it a place the kids want to come. She also encourages students to read at their own leisure.

For the first time, sixth graders can now access the library on their own time without having to come with their class or a teacher.

“We want to get them in the door and get them matched with a book that they will love and hopefully build a lifelong love for learning and reading,” she said. “As a librarian that is literally like winning the Super Bowl.

“There is no better feeling as a librarian than when a kid comes to return a book and says, ‘Is there another one’ or ‘This is the best book I have ever read,’ that’s a 10 out of 10 day because that is our goal,” she continued. “As a librarian I love reading and know how enjoyable it can be when you find that perfect match, so when you recommend that they try a certain book and they come back and like it, that is the best feeling.”

Gillett said she tries to match up students with authors, genres and topics that they will be interested in so that they will want to visit the library more often to check out books they want to read.