 The last week of February is Read Across America Week and students in the Brainerd Public School District were celebrating in unique ways. Read Across America was founded in 1998 and is an annual reading motivation and awareness program that calls for every community to celebrate reading in honor of Dr. Jesus's birthday, which is on March 2nd. Baxter Elementary School held an assembly to kick off the week and chose four books for classes to focus on during the week. We kicked off the week with an assembly that gathered all the kids together and we were able to talk about the books that we were going to be reading this week. So each classroom reads four books so the whole school is reading the same four books and at the end of the week we get to the kids get to vote. The month of February is Love to Read Month and for Baxter Elementary it's a great opportunity to remind students and families about the importance of reading. This school has been celebrating Read Across America Week for the last few years and it's been a huge hit with the students. Reading is so important. It's so important for kids to find books that they enjoy reading and become lifelong readers. I mean along the road reading will help them in every area of their academics and it's fun you know and we want kids to enjoy reading and seek out books that they like. The staff at Baxter Elementary School encourages parents and guardians to read with their students for at least 20 minutes every night to help them grow as readers. If you enjoyed this segment of Lakeland News please consider making a tax-deductible contribution to Lakeland PBS.