West Philadelphia Students Get Special Visits During National Library Week

By Cherri Gregg

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - It's National Library Week and a local non-profit is surprising several West Philadelphia elementary schools with visits from popular children's book authors, illustrators and local celebrities.

The West Philadelphia Alliance for Children is bringing more than 30 authors, illustrators, and local celebrities to visit eleven area schools this week.

WePAC Executive Director David Florig says, "The authors will be reading to the children and maybe doing an art activity related to the book or showing the children how books are illustrated and put together."

Florig says the special guests include Debbie Dadey who has sold millions of copies of her Bailey School Kids series of books.  Local television and radio personalities will read to the children and talk about their careers, explaining how reading and writing is a big part of success.

"Many of the children that we serve in the library struggle with reading and we're really hoping to make reading very exciting to them.  And we hope they see that reading and writing is important to their futures."

National Library Week runs through Friday.