Readers' reward – Wadewitz’s Racine Reads library makeover starts Thursday

RACINE Its time to say goodbye to the Wadewitz librarys gray institutional-looking wall tiles and mustard-colored carpeting, covered with duct tape in some well-worn spots.

Construction begins Thursday on a $100,000 library makeover the elementary school won in May for reading the most books per student during the past school years Racine Reads contest.

Mount Pleasant Renaissance School, 6150 Taylor Ave., and Trinity Lutheran School, 2035 Geneva St., also won $25,000 library makeovers for reading the second- and third-most books per student.

Wadewitzs updated library should be completed by the start of school this fall, said Wadewitz Principal Chad Chapin. He said the library will be a literacy commons designed around a comment from Fisk Johnson, chairman and CEO of SC Johnson, which funded Racine Reads and its prizes. When Johnson announced the prize-winners at a ceremony in May, he compared reading to piloting a plane.

Pick anywhere, Johnson said, and reading will take you there.

The updated Wadewitz library will focus on that idea through clouds painted on the ceiling, a world map on new carpeting and a book check-out area that looks like an airport counter, Chapin said.

It will be a big change for the outdated 2,600-square-foot library that still includes remnants from the rooms original use as a therapy space for special education students.

Old pictures show beds lined up in the room like a hospital. Those have been removed but the upper half of a glass room-divider still hangs from the ceiling and a large therapy lift beam juts out from one wall. Those things will be taken down in the makeover, Chapin said.

The gray wall tiles and the yellow, worn carpet will disappear too, he said, adding Racine Unified is paying for the carpet removal, related asbestos removal and new carpet installation because that project was planned prior to Wadewitzs Racine Reads win.

The updated library will also have new windows, new lighting, iPads for student use, bean bags and couches for students to read in and TV monitors around the room to help students follow along with lessons. Part of a wall will even get removed to open up the library and let passersby see in.

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Readers' reward - Wadewitz’s Racine Reads library makeover starts Thursday