All the Books!

 I was lucky enough to have parents who read to me and who prioritized having books in the home because they were readers too. (My mother was an insomniac, and read a mystery a night. My father favored history and biographies. My brother is a huge reader, fiction, non-fiction, it doesn't matter. 

I am a huge fan of libraries because even with an allowance, I couldn't buy all the books I wanted to read as a kid. I loved going to the library. One or the other of my parents took us every week and I've had a library card since I was old enough to write my name with one of those chubby pencils. My parents also had a very laid-back attitude toward content. If I COULD read it, I could read it, if you know what I mean. When  my high school required permission slips for my  honors history class to read William Styron's Confessions of Nat Turner, they signed the slip without thinking twice.

Styron was a graduate of Duke University, as am I, and in my freshman or sophomore year, he came to the school and read to us from his work in progress, which turned out to be Sophie's Choice. I don't remember that much about the evening, just that the prose was so clean and clear and sexy without being pornographic. I was already thinking about being a writer--or rather, making a living as a writer--and I was thrilled to be in the presence of "a real writer," even though my own mother made a living as a columnist for one of the local papers.

I like to give books as presents. And I like to give money to organizations that support literacy and reading. 

If you have a young child, you probably know about (the awesome) Dolly Parton project Imagination Library. Her foundation provides a free book a month for children up to the age of five. She created the foundation in honor of her father, who was "the smartest man she knew" but unable to read, which kept him from achieving his dreams. You can sign up for the program here. (It's not just in the US, but in the UK, Canada, the Republic of Ireland, and Australia. 

Everybody's favorite actor/literacy advocate, LeVar Burton has just launched a Kickstarter campaign to reboot the beloved PBS show Reading Rainbow. (Not everyone is a fan, see crankypants Washington Post article here) and it's gotten a lot of buzz. You can even get a cool t-shirt. Here's the link to the kidkstarter campaign if you want to read the pitch and/or donate. 

Haymarket Books has a program they call Books Not Bars and aims to get books (they publish) into the hands of people incarcerated this holiday season. But there ae also organizations that work to provide books for prisoners that come from all kinds of publishers. The rules are pretty strict. Holy books of all faiths are always welcome, as are books like dictionaries. How-to-draw books are regularly requested. Here's a good article posted by the PDX organization that provides books.