When Virginia leaders announced that schools across the Commonwealth would close for the remaining 2020 academic year due to concerns about the COVID-19 pandemic, the education staff at WHRO Public Media quickly changed up their normal routines to seek new ways to support teachers and parents as they ventured into at-home learning.
Since her team couldn’t read to children in person, Martha Razor, manager of early childhood learning, decided to bring the stories to students virtually. That’s when Ms. Martha Reads was born.
Each week on Facebook, Martha read a new story aloud and showed the accompanying illustrations. Rather than reading the books that children may already know, or could possibly find on their shelves at home, Martha read stories that were submitted in previous years to the WHRO annual PBS Kids Writers Contest. These short tales are stories written and illustrated by children in grades K-5th.
As the program has evolved, the writers contest winners themselves often read their own stories now on Ms. Martha Reads. It has become another way to celebrate these young, talented writers.
During the recent Young Storytellers Awards ceremony, which celebrates the winners of the annual writers contest, we caught up with several previous winners.
Eli Casey, who won as a fourth grader in 2018, is now a rising senior. His environmental story “My Plan to Save the Earth” was turned into a WHRO GreenBeats episode titled “Be Like the Robots,” which went on to win a Silver Telly Award.
He said he still has many of the same interests as when he won - music, sports, and, of course, writing.
“I’m still writing,” he said. “I’ve started doing journalism, so writing for a newspaper at the university where I have dual enrollment.”
He also volunteers at the Virginia Zoo.
He recalled when the WHRO production team turned his story into an episode of GreenBeats. He helped a local musician as she composed the music for the episode, and he consulted with animators at Regent University to bring the episode to life.
“It’s something I look back on and am quite proud of,” he said. “It was just an amazing experience.”
Ruben Todd IV, who won 2nd place as a 5th-grader in 2008, is now a 25-year-old musician and college student pursuing a career in film and television. He said the writing and storytelling he did as a student was good preparation for his career field.
“It’s funny how a seed can be planted as a youth, and then you see a person grow up and do something that they do when they were younger,” he explained.
His story, “The Donkey Who Lost His Memory,” has become a fan favorite and is the most watched episode of Ms. Martha Reads.
Ms. Martha recently enjoyed a visit from renowned poet Alexander Kwame who joined her to film an episode of Ms. Martha Reads as part of her 5th-anniversary celebration. They read the story “There’s No Place Like Home,” from 2022 winner Malaya Charles. Kwame is celebrating the release of two new children’s books. Acoustic Rooster and Friends tells Acoustic Rooster’s story through lyrical, jazzy text, and Acoustic Rooster Sings the Alphabet is packed full of jazz facts from A to Z.
This month, PBS Kids also released Acoustic Rooster and His Barnyard Band, a one-hour special based on Alexander’s book.
Watch Ms. Martha Reads every Friday at 10 a.m. on the WHRO Facebook page, and catch up on missed episodes at whro.org/marthareads.