“A simple book can change their lives”

Miss Iowa passionate about childhood literacy

By Molly Roberts
Posted 1/25/22

Miss Iowa, Grace Lynn Keller, visited Mid-Prairie schools on Thursday, Jan. 20 to promote her social impact project, which focuses on literacy in grades kindergarten through third grade.

Keller …

This item is available in full to subscribers.

Please log in to continue

E-mail
Password
Log in

“A simple book can change their lives”

Miss Iowa passionate about childhood literacy

Posted

Miss Iowa, Grace Lynn Keller, visited Mid-Prairie schools on Thursday, Jan. 20 to promote her social impact project, which focuses on literacy in grades kindergarten through third grade.

Keller read “Smelly Socks” by Robert Munsch, which Mid-Prairie second grade teacher Kerri Bell proclaimed as one of her favorite authors and books — she even had her own copy of “Smelly Socks” in her classroom.

“This is kind of a silly book,” Keller told the students before cracking open the book. “But it’s good to be silly sometimes, isn’t it?”

After reading “Smelly Socks”, Keller lead the students through a writing and drawing activity, giving individual attention to students and answering their questions.

Keller graduated in May from the University of Iowa, where she studied Journalism and Mass Communication and hopes to go into the public relations field. Although she doesn’t plan to pursue elementary education, childhood literacy is a topic near and dear to her heart.

“My mom was an elementary school teacher,” Keller said. “And I grew up with access to a lot of books — there were books everywhere in my home. But I realized that not all students have this kind of access to books and literature and, the more I thought about it, promoting literacy with young kids became something that was very important to me.”

Keller said she has visited eight schools and several libraries since being crowned Miss Iowa in June 2021, where she has enjoyed the chance to read to children from all different backgrounds with all different experiences.

“One thing I love about reading to children is you never know what’s going to impact them,” Keller said. “They can really take messages to heart or realize the value of reading. A simple book can change their lives. I love being able to share a reading experience with them and hope it impacts them in a positive way.”