Fathers Incorporated Partners with Little Free Library

by Melissa Fales

Real Dads Read Barbershop partner Freddie Johnson, III reading with Kenneth Braswell Jr. at Anytime Cutz in Atlanta.

Having established 51 children’s libraries inside metro Atlanta barbershops through its Real Dads Read program, Fathers Incorporated is now joining forces with Little Free Library to get even more books into the hands of low-income children. This joint venture will result in an additional 50 Little Free Libraries installed at various Atlanta elementary schools, making books available to children even after school hours and on weekends.

“With this partnership, we’ll not only be increasing access to books for low-income children, we’ll also be increasing the engagement and involvement of fathers in their children’s education,” says Kenneth Braswell, executive director of Fathers Incorporated.

In 2004, Braswell founded the non-profit organization to encourage men to be more involved in their children’s lives. He says the move was in response to his experience growing up and his initial experience as a father himself. “I know personally what it means to not have a father in your life,” says Braswell, who regrets not being a more active participant in his eldest child’s life. “I was young and dumb,” he says. “I didn’t recognize the role I needed to play. When my second daughter was born, it crystallized for me the importance of my presence in my children’s lives.”

The Real Dads Read initiative that places children’s books in barbershops has been an overwhelming success for Fathers Incorporated. “Research shows that literacy in high-poverty areas isn’t due to a lack of interest in reading, it’s the lack of access to books,” says Braswell. Since children are allowed to take the books from the barbershop home and keep them, Real
Dads Read is constantly replenishing its stock, to the tune of roughly 250 books each month. “That’s exactly what we want,” says Braswell. “We want these kids to have books. We’re trying to reduce the number of book deserts, particularly in low-income communities where the majority of children do not have any books to read in their homes.”

The barbershop library project earned Real Dads Read a reputation for making a difference. Schools started calling Braswell for advice on how to get more fathers engaged in their classrooms. Last September, Braswell was at a school in Decatur when he had a big idea. “I thought that a Little Free Library would fit in perfectly with the outside of the school,” he
says.

Little Free Library is a non-profit organization that facilitates free book exchanges and sells
simple, attractive wooden boxes to house the books, or shares the blueprints to build one. Typically hung on a post, a Little Free Library often resembles a bird house and operates much like the “need a penny, take a penny” dish next to a cash register. “The idea is to let the library become part of the streetscape and part of the neighborhood,” says Braswell.

Braswell installed Little Free Libraries at three elementary schools in Decatur, posting photos of
the events on social media. When Little Free Library CEO Todd Bol happened to see them, he decided he wanted to learn more about Real Dads Read and contacted Braswell. “The rest is history,” Braswell says. “We’ve been pretty much joined at the hip ever since. Real Dads Read will be establishing reading clubs in each of the 50 schools that will receive a Little Free Library. “We want to engage fathers with some literary activities,” says Braswell. “We’re a father agency, not a literacy agency, but one thing we do know is that when fathers read with their children, good things happen.”

Little Free Library will also be partnering with Real Dads Read on a mobile unit project that places crates of children’s books in the back of specially-marked police cruisers. “The police car becomes a mobile library,” says Braswell. “The kids know that these officers have books. It helps to create a conversation between law enforcement and the children in their community. It builds connections.”

The project is set to start in Atlanta soon. In addition to its Real Dads Read efforts, Fathers Incorporated is launching a new campaign in June called Drive to Five. “With this program, we’re narrowing our focus to fathers who are raising children ages infant to 5 years old,” says Braswell. “We believe that this cohort is where we can make the largest impact on children.” According to Braswell, non-resident dads are far more likely to totally disconnect from their children by the time the children are age five than resident dads. “Forming lasting bonds during those first five years is absolutely crucial,” says Braswell. “I’ve seen the impact that
fatherlessness has on communities, especially low-income communities. It’s devastating. This work we do is to ensure that the dads we work with are as intimately connected as early as possible.”

One aspect of Drive to Five will be to provide educational materials about responsible parenting to new fathers and fathers-to-be. The branding for Drive to Five features a superhero cartoon character named Adam, and Braswell says he wants regular, everyday dads to learn to see themselves this way. “He’s not Super Dad,” says Braswell. “Yes, he’s standing there with a cape, but he can’t stop bullets in his teeth. He doesn’t have x-ray vision. What he does have is Daddy
power. When a father reads with his child, that’s a power. When he has a positive interaction with the mother of his child, that’s another power. I want every father to understand how much daddy power he has. Each father has to activate his own powers, but he has to be aware of them first. That’s where we come in.” •

Check out more great articles like this in the June issue of Story Monsters Ink!

Monsters at the Movies - Avengers: Infinity War

Reviewed by Nick Spake
GRADE: A

When Iron Man hit theaters in 2008, audiences were given just a small dose of the phenomenon that would become the MCU. When Marvel brought six of its established heroes together for The Avengers, it seemed as if they had topped themselves and this universe couldn’t possibly become more ambitious. A couple years after that, we got Captain America: Civil War, which seemed like the Marvel movie to outdo all others. Turns out that directors Anthony and Joe Russo were actually holding out on us, as Avengers: Infinity War makes everything that came before look like a slight brawl. Bigger doesn’t always equal better, but in this case, going big pays off in marvelous ways.

In all the years I’ve worked as a critic, no film has left me breathless quite like Infinity War did. Even while typing this review, my nerves are still shot and my brain is still struggling to process everything that transpired on the silver screen. Walking out of the theater, you feel as if you just ran a marathon. Come to think of it, the MCU on the whole has been a marathon that’s spanned 10 years and almost 20 outings. What makes Infinity War all the more exhausting is that it’s not even the end of the MCU’s third phase. We still have two more movies until the fourth Avengers comes out in 2019. The good news is that Infinity War will leave you pumped to run for the home stretch … at least after taking a much-needed breather.

This movie not only assembles the Avengers, but pretty much every major MCU hero, from Spider-Man to Black Panther to the Guardians of the Galaxy. While there are a couple notable omissions, the filmmakers compensate for this with some of the best cameos of recent memory. The film additionally includes several dream team-ups with Iron Man brainstorming alongside Doctor Strange and Star-Lord getting jealous of Thor’s rugged good looks. Even less popular heroes like Scarlet Witch and Vision are given a lot more to chew on here. Although the story jumps around constantly and juggles countless characters, it never feels overstuffed or unbalanced. If anything, each subplot is given just the right amount of attention.

Of course the real star here is the villainous Thanos, played by an especially sinister Josh Brolin. Having briefly appeared in several movies already, no baddie has been built up like Thanos and Infinity War doesn’t disappoint with his grand arrival. Armed with a weapon known as the Infinity Gauntlet, Thanos sets out to find the remaining Infinity Stones. With the complete package, Thanos is capable of virtually anything, including wiping out half the population with a snap. No Marvel villain thus far can contend with Thanos on a physical level, but what’s truly refreshing is that the filmmakers don’t simply make him a power-hungry god. Thanos catches us off-guard with moments of vulnerability, particularly during his interactions with adopted daughter Gamora. That being said, the fact that Thanos has a little humanity in him arguably makes the atrocities he commits even more unspeakable.

In the same vein as Darth Vader in The Empire Strikes Back, Thanos evolves from being a cool-looking antagonist to a genuinely intimidating opponent with a complex mindset. Speaking of The Empire Strikes Back, this is by far the darkest and most unsettling MCU movie to date. Fortunately, this doesn’t come at the expense of this franchise’s trademark humor, as we get several hilarious interactions between our heroes. The film will have you laughing one second and dropping your jaw the next, but the tone somehow doesn’t feel all over the place. In other words, Justice League this is not.

Also like Empire, Infinity War takes chances with the universe it’s created, leaving us on a cliffhanger that’ll stick with the audience forever. Without delving into spoiler territory, the ending is bound to inspire heated conversations and theories. It’s hard to say if Marvel will be able to deliver a conclusion that’ll satisfy everyone going into the next Avengers movie. If they can pull it off, however, we may be in store for the finest double feature since Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. For now, I can safely say that Infinity War is an exhilarating, devastating, hysterical, and challenging first half with enough stunning action sequences to sustain us for an entire summer. •

Check out the newest movie reviews, book reviews, interviews, and more in the June issue of Story Monsters Ink!