I. 2019 Book Selection: We are pleased to announce the book selections for the coming year! We thank all the members of our Selection Committee who participated for their work in choosing a great lineup of books for next year.

• Can I Be Your Dog? by Troy Cummings
• We Don’t Eat Our Classmates! by Ryan T. Higgins
• The Princess and the Pit Stop by Tom Angleberger
• Twig by Aura Parker
• Detective Dog by Julia Donaldson
• Crunch, the Shy Dinosaur by Cirocco Dunlap

II. Contacts: Please let us know by October 19th if you are willing and able to be our contact for the 2019 celebration. If you are unable to serve please provide us with information for an alternate contact for your community. Thank you for your help with this!!

III. Sample Sets: We will ask the Wyoming State Library to distribute the sample sets early again this year. Our plan is for the sets to be sent out in late November and early December to get them to the schools prior to Christmas break. We have received positive feedback concerning the earlier distribution. We would like all book orders to be returned to us no later than January 29, 2019. Thank you for your timely help in meeting this deadline! Please let us know at once if you anticipate needing a different number of sample sets for next year.

IV. Fundraising: We are once more committing to provide the funding for the books, bookplates, and book bags across the state. This will be the 21st year for the celebration here in Casper and the 14th year this has been a statewide event. Assuming we have about 7,500 student participants statewide next year we will, with your help, have been blessed to provide over 110,000 personalized, hardback books to Wyoming first graders. Of course, we could never have accomplished that without all your help. Thank you!

Please identify a location for your celebration, add the special touches that work in your community and then get all your first graders together for your celebration. Again, the scheduled date for next year’s celebration is May 14, 2019. Please get it on your calendars now.

Thanks to those of you who provide us leads for funding sources and who find grants in your community. Every little bit helps. Our budget for the coming year is $110,000 in cash and in-kind support.

V. Joining Forces: As always, we encourage communities to consider joining forces with neighboring towns. The bigger and more exciting we can make each celebration the more memorable it will be for the children. We welcome any community to join next year!

VI. Out of State Celebrations: The concept of “Wyoming Reads” continues to spread. There will be 10 celebrations around the state of Oregon next spring as well as two more in Minnesota and two in California that are patterned after our Wyoming events. We have been honored to attend the events and participate in these exciting programs.

Thank you for your continued support of “Wyoming Reads”! We welcome any suggestions you might have to improve the experience for the children.

John Jorgensen