I saved an article from last spring by Jamie Littlefield entitled, Promote Reading: Share Books. Here are a few of her suggestions that bear repeating.
The bad news:
21,000,000 Americans can’t read…
45,000,000 Americans are marginally illiterate…
Fewer than 1/2 of Americans read literature…
In some libraries, the copyright date on non fiction books is 1982…
The good news:
Kids who read at a young age are less likely to drop out of school…
Literary readers are 2 1/2 times more likely to attend cultural events…
Jamie Littlefield’s suggestions:
- Be an example by reading, sharing book ideas and visiting the library.
- Start a lending library by allowing people to borrow your books. Create a readily available space, fill a box with books and you’re in busness. Remember you’ll need to devise a check-out card, a sign-in sheet, etc where they sign their name and phone number so you can track the books out on loan.
- Give books as gifts.
- Donate books to schools, classrooms and homeless shelters.
Other ideas: Checkout the following sites
Whether you go a step further and build a ‘little library’ or try any of these ideas, I hope you think about how important reading is to/for all of us. Starting with reading to babies and onto reading with the elderly and everyone in between, reading matters.