With the help of a community of educators, librarians, authors, and illustrators, Penn students select picture books for the Mirrors Collection that reflect themes like social justice, health literacy, and emotional literacy.
Our Work With Students
Our student team works across all our projects—on-site at elementary school libraries, behind the scenes on the catalog system, and in the development of literacy resources.
PLCE students:
- Work with young readers to promote a love of libraries, celebrating them as magical and liberatory spaces
- Help student patrons shop the shelves to find books that excite and energize them.
- Check books in and out for students, engaging with them about their choices and interests, and keeping track of the library’s collection digitally
- Conduct read-alouds for classes while asking thoughtful, engaging questions
- Act as literacy role models, making literacy exciting, cool, and aspirational.
Work with us!
Are you a Penn student who is interested in working with the Community Engagement team? Let us know! Positions are open to both undergraduate and graduate students with work-study funding.
"Seeing kids go up and down the aisles at their school library and looking at books, just reading books [has] always been something that delights me because everyone should have access to books. Everyone should be able to just pick a book off a shelf and read."
- Meresa Garcia (Penn 23', GSE 24') in Penn Today's "Who What Why"
Hear from Student Workers
Find out more about student work and read about the picture books that have inspired them.
To celebrate the end of the semester, we invited the wonderful University of Pennsylvania students from the Community Engagement team to tell us about books that feel like “home” to them.
