"Books Alive! For Kids" Tonight

After nine years of local school classroom presentations, Kathy Wade brings her "Books Alive!" reading program to TV at 7 p.m. today on Ch. 12. "Books Alive! For Kids," a half-hour show, is the first of four programs to be produced this year, and to air on Ch. 12's sister digital station, the CinCW (8:30 a.m. the first Sunday of each month).

Craig "CJ" Thompson Jr., 11, of College Hill, a fifth- grade student at the College Hill Fundamental Academy, stars in the dramatization of the children’s book, "Heaven's All-Star Jazz Band" by Don Carter. It's an adaptation, directed by Alphonzo "Zo" Wesson III, of the school presentations Wade has done through her nonprofit Learning Through Art Inc. The show ends with Wade and her band performing a jazz concert at Cincinnati State Technical and Community College.

The "Books Alive!" series is Channel 12's first venture into programming with nonprofit arts and community organizations for its new Web site, http://www.cincyscape.com/
The show will be archived there. Channel 12 also tapes and posts Deerfield and Sycamore township goverment meetings on Cincyscape, sort of a public access TV channel on the web.

Wade says she wants to produce one or more a month and offer them to schools with a teacher's guide and craft. "We've been looking for ways to expand 'Books Alive!' regionally or nationally, and now it will be worldwide on the Web," she says.

"Books Alive! For Kids" will repeat at 8:30 a.m. May 6 and June 3 on the CinCW (Time Warner Ch. 20, Insight Ch. 25).