Sorry, it is behind a paywall and if I copy it all, I'll get the lawyers all riled up.
www.wsj.com
Former UGA and Patriots WR Malcolm Mitchell is doing some great things. He was far behind in reading ability when he arrived in college, but took quite a personal initiative to change that and is now writing children's books and helping to get children interested in reading.
Today Mr. Mitchell, 28, is a writer himself. His second children’s book, “My Very Favorite Book in the Whole Wide World,” will be published next month in a bilingual edition with English and Spanish side by side. Retired from the NFL because of injuries, he devotes himself to traveling the country to promote literacy, particularly among students from disadvantaged backgrounds like his own. “Children listen to me because I look like many of them,” he says. His Share the Magic Foundation, now in its fifth year, has reached hundreds of thousands of students through in-person school events and free virtual programming, including a READcamp to keep kids reading over the summer. The organization has distributed nearly 60,000 free books to kids in underserved communities.
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“If I could have convinced all of my friends as a child to read, they would have made better choices,” Mr. Mitchell says over Zoom from his home in Atlanta, which he shares with his partner, Jasmine Erves, and their 1-year-old son. Statistics from the Annie E. Casey Foundation, a child-welfare charity, show that students who struggle to read by the end of third grade are four times more likely to drop out of high school than proficient readers. “I want children to understand the importance of reading so they can give themselves a shot at living their best life,” he says.
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But his mother, who raised him and his two siblings largely on her own while working at a call-center and earning a degree in social work, taught him that while adversity is often inevitable, it can also be an opportunity. She told him a story about what happens to a carrot, an egg and coffee beans when they are dropped into boiling water. The heat makes the carrot limp and the egg hard, but the coffee beans don’t succumb to the water; instead, they transform it. “Be the coffee beans,” his mother said.
Super Bowl Champion Malcolm Mitchell Knows the Challenge of Reading
The former NFL wide receiver draws on his own early struggles with literacy to promote the power of books.
www.wsj.com
Former UGA and Patriots WR Malcolm Mitchell is doing some great things. He was far behind in reading ability when he arrived in college, but took quite a personal initiative to change that and is now writing children's books and helping to get children interested in reading.
Today Mr. Mitchell, 28, is a writer himself. His second children’s book, “My Very Favorite Book in the Whole Wide World,” will be published next month in a bilingual edition with English and Spanish side by side. Retired from the NFL because of injuries, he devotes himself to traveling the country to promote literacy, particularly among students from disadvantaged backgrounds like his own. “Children listen to me because I look like many of them,” he says. His Share the Magic Foundation, now in its fifth year, has reached hundreds of thousands of students through in-person school events and free virtual programming, including a READcamp to keep kids reading over the summer. The organization has distributed nearly 60,000 free books to kids in underserved communities.
...
“If I could have convinced all of my friends as a child to read, they would have made better choices,” Mr. Mitchell says over Zoom from his home in Atlanta, which he shares with his partner, Jasmine Erves, and their 1-year-old son. Statistics from the Annie E. Casey Foundation, a child-welfare charity, show that students who struggle to read by the end of third grade are four times more likely to drop out of high school than proficient readers. “I want children to understand the importance of reading so they can give themselves a shot at living their best life,” he says.
...
But his mother, who raised him and his two siblings largely on her own while working at a call-center and earning a degree in social work, taught him that while adversity is often inevitable, it can also be an opportunity. She told him a story about what happens to a carrot, an egg and coffee beans when they are dropped into boiling water. The heat makes the carrot limp and the egg hard, but the coffee beans don’t succumb to the water; instead, they transform it. “Be the coffee beans,” his mother said.
