LANSING, MI — Jerry Patrick travels with over 100 children’s books every day. His mission is to get children and parents to enjoy reading together. He believes that every household should have a library with children’s book in them. In these hard economic times, Mr. Patrick believes that a book purchase is affordable and promotes academic success.
Reading is important to the development of families. Mr. Patrick saw a desperate need for African American males to help nurture their children by reading to them. He states that a fundamental ingredient to raising a successful child is for them to excel in reading.
Mr. Patrick was raised in Detroit, Michigan in family of educators. His older brother, Lawrence Patrick, Jr., was the former President of the Detroit Board of Education in the 1980’s. His sisters all worked in the field of education as well.
While working in Detroit school system in the 1970’s, Mr. Patrick stated that he saw a 12-year-old boy in the hallway crying. When he asked why was he crying the young man replied that he couldn’t read. Mr. Patrick stated that he asked him if he had a father to read to him. The young man’s reply was no. He was also astonished that a child who couldn’t read made it to the seventh grade.
However, Mr. Patrick took it upon himself to volunteer his time to teach the young man how to read and the young man went on to graduate from high school and complete college.
“If you can’t read you’re not able to follow instructions and that causes children to become a distraction to the teachers and the fellow students. In most situations, the inability to follow directions, lead to discipline problems,” explained Mr. Patrick.
Selling children’s books is what he does well. Mr. Patrick is the owner of Perfect Printing Service and Children’s Book Distributing. A more well-known children’s book program is Scholastic. However, Mr. Patrick states that being a local business helps him choose his books to represent the parents, students and teachers that he speaks to daily. He also loves the face-face personal interaction with his customers. He remains knowledgable about new authors and titles by going to book conventions across the nation.
“Instead of parents buying computer games or gym shoes, they should consider buying books. They last longer, don’t go out of style and open windows to new worlds,” says Mr. Patrick.
He has sold hundreds of books and he plans on doing more to help with promoting literacy in Michigan.
For more information about purchasing books, book fairs, book parties for parent organizations, contact Mr. Patrick at 517.410.1688 or perfectprinting@myway.com
