The Noble Neighbor
EAGLE College Preparatory Tower Grove East students with Last Stop on Market Street books
Metro Theater Company is excited to partner with the nonprofit the Noble Neighbor during Last Stop on Market Street! Enjoy this Q&A with Noble Neighbor Executive Director Andrea Scarpino.
What is the Noble Neighbor and what makes the organization unique?
The Noble Neighbor is the nonprofit wing of the local indie bookstore the Novel Neighbor. We were founded in 2019 as a way to work towards more educational equity in the St. Louis region. We bring authors into schools that often don't have access to author events and donate their books to the kids in those schools. For example, with the help of a grant from the Greater St. Louis Book Fair, we recently donated 140 copies of books 1 and 2 of Zetta Elliott's Dragons in a Bag series to kids at Marion Elementary and set up an author visit with Zetta so kids could learn about Zetta's work and ask her questions. Kids got so excited about their books that they asked Zetta when the next installments will be published!
We combine an author visit with donated books because we know that literacy rates increase when kids have access to books AND when they have access to authors! A 2019 study from The National Literacy Trust in the UK found that students who had authors visit their schools were twice as likely to read above their grade level, were more likely to enjoy reading and writing, and were more likely to be confident in their own reading skills than students who didn’t have an author visit. By providing author visits and books to kids who don’t normally have access to either, we are working to increase literacy rates in our community and build strong readers into the future.
Plus, it's SO FUN to give kids books and see them interact with authors! Everyone has a blast!
How have you collaborated with Metro Theater Company?
We've collaborated with Metro Theater Company by gifting 80 books to EAGLE College Preparatory Tower Grove East for kids who are attending MTC’s production of Last Stop on Market Street. So kids at EAGLE will get their own copy of the book (which is absolutely gorgeous) and have the opportunity to see the production of the play. It's a little bit different from our traditional author visit, and we're so excited that kids will have the opportunity to take home a book and see that book come alive on the stage. The Noble Neighbor is also donating copies of Last Stop on Market Street to every Believe Project student who attends an in-person performance of the musical. The Believe Project is led by Julius B. Anthony, President of the St. Louis Black Authors of Children’s Literature. Learn more about The Believe Project here.
What are some of your most memorable experiences with the Noble Neighbor?
I think my most memorable experience so far is just seeing kids when they have the chance to meet an author! They ask such amazing and interesting questions and they are always making our authors laugh. It's just so fun to see them get excited about characters in a book and want to know more!
How do you respond to young people who say that they don't like to read?
I think often when kids say they don't like to read, it's because reading is hard for them or because they haven't found characters and authors they can relate to. When kids are given access to literacy tools and books they see themselves in, they very often enjoy reading! As a personal example: I've struggled with math since 6th grade so I really don't like having to do it! It's not super fun for any of us to do things we're not good at. So when a child says they don't like reading, my first response is to get curious and dig deeper about why. If it's because they've never seen themselves in a book, then we need to find them different books. If it's because they really struggle reading, then we need to give them appropriate literacy supports. In my experience, when a child has the right book that they can succeed in reading, they very often enjoy it.
What are some of your favorite books for young people?
I have SO MANY favorite books for young people! Too many to list! My very favorite book from 2021 was Kwame Mbalia's Black Boy Joy which is an anthology of 17 different stories of Black boyhood written by wonderful contemporary writers. I love every single story in the collection! It's really pretty glorious. For older readers, Jasmine Warga's My Heart and Other Black Holes is lovely and heartbreaking but does deal with suicide so is definitely not for every reader. For picture books, I love the bilingual, Cuando amamos, cantamos by Ernesto Javier Martinez. And Last Stop on Market Street is completely gorgeous, start to finish, a beautiful story with beautiful illustrations. But again, there are so many great writers writing children's literature right now! You really can't go wrong picking up a kid's book.
Anything else you would like to add?
The Noble Neighbor's work is entirely funded by grants and donations from our community. We can only bring books and authors to kids because our community supports us! It takes about $2,500 to supply 200 kids with a book and author visit, so any donation helps.
EAGLE College Preparatory Tower Grove East students with Last Stop on Market Street books
Noble Neighbor author visit with Zetta Elliott
Noble Neighbor author visit with Christian Robinson