To the Editor:

Thank you for highlighting the annual Bryn Mawr-Wellesley Book Sale held at Princeton Day School in the March 22 edition of Town Topics [book review, page 15]. For the last two years, the Princeton-Blairstown Center and other charities have been able to take advantage of a wonderful benefit afforded to local non-profits that allows us to obtain boxes of age-appropriate books for free on the last day of the sale. What an incredible opportunity!

This year we were able to select five boxes of books that will be given to low-income students who are served in our Summer Bridge Program, a program designed to help stem the summer learning loss for more than 200 students in Mercer County. Research indicates that “the best predictor of summer loss or summer gain is whether or not a child reads during the summer … research shows that public library use among poor children drops off when a library is more than six blocks from their home, compared with more than two miles for middle-class children.” This is one of many reasons why low-income students show an average loss in reading achievement over the summer, while middle-income students show an average gain.

Thank you to everyone at the Bryn Mawr-Wellesley Book Sale and Princeton Day School for providing critical resources to help young people from low-income neighborhoods stem reading loss and broaden their world view.

Pam Gregory

President and CEO, Princeton-Blair