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Blake Gives Voice to Reading Program
James Blake looked typically cool in the magazine spread that Betty Brooks held up for her class yesterday afternoon at the William H.G. Fitzgerald Tennis Center. Dreadlocks sprung out of his head, sunglasses rested on his cheekbones and a beard framed his smile. Brooks, the reading specialist with the Washington Tennis and Education Foundation, showed the photograph to 16 children from the foundation's Arthur Ashe Reading Is Fundamental Program who gathered to hear sixth-seeded Blake, older brother Thomas and Michael Chang read. "Okay, kids," Brooks said, "who is this?" Silence permeated the room before an unsure voice emerged: "Osama bin Laden?" Everyone laughed. Even clean-shaven James, who looked different in the picture than he did yesterday, when he brandished a violin and read the lines of lead character Reginald in "The Bat Boy and His Violin." Thomas Blake played Reginald's father and Chang, wearing a bucket fishing hat, served as the narrator. "This is the type of program me and my brother started in," said James Blake, 22, who participated in the Harlem Tennis Junior League while growing up in New York. "They're learning the same things I was at that time." "I enjoyed it when they were acting," said 10-year-old Cristian Salazar, who moved to Washington four years ago from Chile. "It's a fun part of the program. I've been in the program for three years and they taught me how to write and read."
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