If you want to get on Cyndi Giorgis' good side, just talk knowledgeably about Miss Rumphius.
If you don't know about Miss Rumphius - the "Lupine Lady" who makes the world a more beautiful place by scattering flower seeds wherever she goes - then a trip to the library may be in order; for Miss Rumphius is the title character of a children's book by Barbara Cooney.
And in the eyes of UNLV curriculum and instruction professor Giorgis, Miss Rumphius is not just any book; it's her favorite book of all time.
"I love this book, and it's just so me," Giorgis says with obvious enthusiasm. "I connected to it the minute I saw this book."
And when you consider just how many children's books Giorgis loves - and owns - you would recognize that her appreciation of Miss Rumphius is indeed an honor.
After all, Giorgis has collected more than 7,000 children's literature books over the years.
"I use them in everything I do - everything," she says. "Whether it's reading to one of my classes at UNLV, making a presentation at a professional conference, or conducting an in-service for Clark County School District teachers, I find that it's essential to have the books I'm discussing on hand. People don't just want to hear about a book, they want to see it. They want to have their hands on it."
Her extensive collection reflects her zeal for the written word, which she has tried to instill in all of her students over her 16-year career in education. Giorgis passed it on to many of her first-grade pupils when she taught in Wyoming eight years ago and tries today to instill it in tomorrow's teachers who study with her now.
She also takes her mission off campus and into the Southern Nevada community by serving as the local coordinator for Teachers' Choices, a national program sponsored by the International Reading Association. As part of Teachers' Choices, local teachers read and review the newest books in children's literature. At the end of the review process, hundreds of new children's books are donated to the libraries of participating schools.
Because Giorgis is careful to make sure the program includes some schools serving at-risk student populations, many of the free books end up in the hands of the children who need them most.
Giorgis, whose courses at UNLV include children's literature, literature-based instruction, and multicultural literature, believes it's critically important for her college students to have or to develop a love of literature because, as teachers, they will be in positions to influence scores of youngsters. And if they can turn those youngsters on to the love of literature, they can create scores of lifelong readers, she maintains.
Right now, America is losing too many children as independent readers - and at an early age, according to Giorgis.
"We're losing boys as readers by the fourth grade," she says. And, unfortunately, the girls, who traditionally have been stronger readers, are beginning to slip away, too. Many possible reasons for this downward trend exist, including participation in sports, peer pressure, and a preoccupation with television, according to Giorgis.
To combat this trend it's imperative that both parents and teachers read frequently to children too young to read by themselves. Later, children should be encouraged to read on their own, she says. But, at the same time, parents and teachers should continue reading to children even after the children are capable of reading independently.
"Unfortunately, a lot of parents think that once their children begin to read on their own that they should stop reading to them, and that's terrible," she says.
A person is never too old to be read to, Giorgis maintains. And she practices what she preaches. Just ask her UNLV students.
"I read a story to my classes every week," she says. That means she begins each semester looking out at classrooms filled with dozens of college students who roll their eyes or look at her with disbelief painted prominently on their faces when she announces that she's about to read them a story.
As the weeks pass, however, "they come to expect it, and then when I don't read a story to them, they're disappointed."
This makes perfect sense to Giorgis, who says, "We love to hear stories. We love to hear language."
And the stories and books we read often serve to create a bond between us and others who have read and loved the same books, says Giorgis, who holds a doctoral degree in language, reading, and culture and a master's degree in library science, both from the University of Arizona.
"It's amazing how so much of that literature really stays with us, whether it's Mother Goose or Charlotte's Web," she says. "It's something that draws us all together. Even though we may be thinking of it in different ways, somehow that literature ties us all together."
For instance, when she asks the women in her classes how many of them remember reading the Judy Blume book, Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret, "Hands all go up. It's one of those classics that so many of us related to because it was that coming-of-age kind of thing for girls."
Giorgis, who at 13 began working in the local library in Jackson, Wyo., as a story-time reader for youngsters, says she still has vivid memories of the books she read as a girl.
"I read every Nancy Drew book there ever was. I read Little Women. I remember my fifth-grade teacher reading Where the Red Fern Grows, and I remember crying and just sobbing. I think that's what speaks to the power of literature - that it can stir our emotions."
Today, Giorgis has what she calls a personal text set - a subset of her larger collection - that contains hundreds of books that she considers to be among her favorites and to be relevant to her life.
Hansel and Gretel is included because of her German heritage; many dog books, such as Wilson Rawls' Where the Red Fern Grows, are also included because of her love of canines. Never Spit On Your Shoes, about a little boy's first day in the first grade, and Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret are also among the books in her personal text set.
"It's just the books that really have touched me or signify something important in my life experiences," says Giorgis.
She says her personal text set - as well as her larger collection - has taken years to create and is always evolving. She began collecting books on her own many years ago; both collections have been greatly supplemented in the last five years through her involvement in a number of book-judging and book-reviewing projects, from which she has received free copies of books from publishers.
However, that doesn't mean she has stopped buying children's books. "I have the credit card receipts to prove it," she says with a laugh.
One of Giorgis' missions these days is to help others find those books that will make a difference in their lives.
That's where the Teachers' Choices program comes in. Through that program, hundreds of new children's books are provided by publishers to teachers throughout the country so that they can be introduced to the newest children's literature.
Giorgis, who is in her third and final year of administering the program locally, says it has been a real boon to a number of schools in the Clark County School District because it has resulted in their libraries receiving dozens of the latest and best children's books for free.
The way the program works is that publishers of children's books supply the International Reading Association with hundreds of copies of what the publishers consider to be their best new books for youngsters. Teachers' Choices coordinators such as Giorgis then distribute them to teachers at participating schools so that they can review them. Teachers are encouraged to read the books they are reviewing to their classes so that they can gauge the students' reactions.
Giorgis has made a special effort to target schools that serve at-risk students because she has noticed that often those schools have inadequate library collections, and the pupils could truly benefit by having dozens of the newest books on their shelves. Last year, each of the seven participating elementary schools received more than 100 books.
The book distribution session that takes place after the judging has been completed is something to see, according to Giorgis. It's handled something like a sports league draft. Participants choose their top 20 titles, then their next 20 titles, until all the books have been distributed.
"It's like Christmas because they're picking out these books, and they're just overwhelmed," she says.
Also overwhelming can be the task of carting the books away. "Last year we had suitcases. We had boxes. We had luggage carts. It was hysterical."
Once the reviews, which also include numerical scores, are turned in by the teachers, the coordinators from across the nation send their data to the reading association to be tallied. The results showing what America's teachers consider to be the best new children's books then appear each November in the Reading Teacher, a journal published by the association.
The publishers benefit, too, because making the list of best new books ensures increased sales, Giorgis says, noting that many children's librarians use the list when placing book orders.
"It's been a tremendous project," she says of the local program. "I'm sorry it's my last year because I've enjoyed the fact that it's brought so many teachers back to reading and discussing books and taking such an active role in the selection of literature. They're really part of this national project, and they're helping to select these books for this national award, so it's pretty exciting.
"With Teachers' Choices, teachers are starting to dialogue about books. They get excited about them and say to one another, 'Oh, you've got to see this book. You've got to read this book.'"
One comment she says she has heard repeatedly from participants is that they had not realized the diversity of topics that today's books cover. She adds that timely topics such as homelessness and the prevalence of guns are included in current children's literature.
"It really has made the teachers stop to think about not only the literature that they're reviewing, but also about the literature they've already been using in the classroom," Giorgis says. "Teachers are kind of creatures of habit in some ways, and they'll keep using the same books over and over and over until they begin exploring other options."
While Giorgis wouldn't want to see classics such as E.B. White's Charlotte's Web tossed out, it would be a true shame if no new books made it into the county's classrooms, she says.
"Some of the most incredible literature being published today is literature that is for children and young adults," she says, adding that adults, too, can read and enjoy many of the books. "I always tell my students, 'These are really adult books disguised as books for children.'"
Another of the reasons it's important for new books to be introduced into the schools is that at long last children's authors are writing quality ethnic literature, according to Giorgis.
"There's so much incredible multicultural literature being published," she says, noting that for years there had been a noticeable absence of such literature for children that was well written.
"It's exciting. With some of the literature that is coming out now we're starting to really see an awareness of cultures and ethnicity and an authenticity in the ways they are being portrayed," Giorgis says.
"For a long time there were books like Little Black Sambo that were just so very stereotyped," she says. "Then people began to look at the field of children's literature and realize that all we had representing people of color were books like Little Black Sambo. I've had some students in my class - African-American students - who said, 'I liked this book because it was the only book I ever saw that had a black character,' which is kind of sad.
"All children need to be able to see themselves in the books that they read. They should be able to see their families. They should be able to see situations that they're involved with. We should be able to see experiences that we all have that cut across all cultures and all ethnicities."
One of her favorites among the new multicultural children's books is To Be A Drum by Evelyn Coleman.
"It talks about Africans who - when they were brought to this country - had their drums taken away. So they began using their bodies and their voices as drums as they worked in the fields," Giorgis says. The book continues, telling how after slavery was abolished, the descendants of these same people began using their education and their votes as drums.
"It's really about being an advocate for yourself," she says.
One of the books from Giorgis' personal text set, Angela Johnson's When I Am Old With You, makes the point, she believes, that good children's literature can be about a particular ethnic or racial group, yet cut across ethnic lines.
Giorgis says this book made it into her personal text set because when she was growing up, she had a very close relationship with her grandfather. When I Am Old With You tells the story of a young African-American boy who also has a warm, caring relationship with his grandfather.
"I shared this book with a group of second-graders," Giorgis says. "When I was through, one of the children asked, 'Were you black when you were little?' It was a very honest question, and it gave me the opportunity to say, 'Wow, I wasn't, but isn't it nice that even though these characters are black, I shared the same experience as this child? This is the way I felt about my granddad - that when I get older I'll be sitting on the front porch with him, just rocking away.'
"It's really nice when we can begin to see that it's not an issue of color; it's an issue of experience."
And the sharing of experiences through books is key to instilling the love of literature that Giorgis is so committed to engendering in her classrooms - and just about everywhere she goes.
Perhaps that is why she loves Miss Rumphius so much: She has shared the experiences of the title character. Like Miss Rumphius, Giorgis is trying to make the world a more beautiful place. But instead of doing so by scattering flower seeds wherever she goes, she is spreading the seeds of learning.
