We just wrapped the most recent episode of the First Book Podcast and it was a huge success! This week our special guest is Eric Close, Verizon Yellow Pages Literacy Champion and star of the CBS hit series “Without A Trace.”

We were very fortunate to have Eric on the call, and he really showed us why he is a true literacy champion. Eric discussed his favorite books, how reading has impacted his family and his career and why he believes literacy is such an important cause to promote.

As Kyle and Eric mentioned, you can help give books to children right now and every day by visiting The Literacy Site and simply clicking on the button to “Fund Books For Kids”.

Thank you to Eric and others that joined us on the call. And if you haven’t already, be sure to subscribe to the podcast feed to be automatically updated when we release future podcasts.

Listen to the audio at the end of this post, or read a transcription of the conversation:

Transcription of the First Book Podcast with Eric Close

Announcer: You are listening to the First Book Podcast brought to you by the First Book blog. At blog.firstbook.org. This week’s special guest Eric Close, Verizon Yellow Pages Literacy Champion and star of CBS hit series Without A Trace.

Kyle Zimmer: Hi, it’s great to be here today. My name’s Kyle Zimmer and I’m president of First Book.

As many of you know, First Book is a national organization with a very, very simple mission. We get brand new books and put them directly into the hands of the children who need them the most.

First Book just celebrated it’s 14th birthday, and we celebrated by giving away our 43rd millionth book. And we had a wonderful time just remembering the kids we’ve met through the years and thinking and recommitting ourselves to the kids who are still waiting for our help.

Now today, we’re here with Eric Close. Eric Close, as most of you know, is the star of the CBS hit show called Without A Trace. Eric is an actor who was born in Staten Island. His father was a surgeon and he grew up with three brothers.

And as I understand, Eric, you had a stint in your childhood through the Midwest, so there are those of us from the Midwest who would love to claim you as our own. And then you moved to San Diego when you were seven.

Eric Close: Yes

Kyle Zimmer: You now have, as I understand, two little girls.

Eric: Yes.

Kyle Zimmer: And you love traveling and reading, especially history. And I will now be quiet and let you talk, because everyone’s here because they want to hear from you.

Eric Close: Thank you very much, and again thank you Kyle for everything that you guys are doing there at First Book. 45 million books — that’s pretty awesome. First Book — you also have to mention they are award-winning. For all the work that you guys have done. So congratulations.

Kyle Zimmer: That’s very kind of you. Thanks so much.

Eric Close: (laughing) Yeah. Yeah it’s true. You know, I live in the city — I live in Los Angeles — but I still consider myself a country boy. That’s true. I miss the Midwest quite a bit. So we get back there. I still have family there. A small town in Indiana. I get to visit my 99-year-old grandmother.

Kyle Zimmer: Oh, my goodness!

Eric Close: Yeah. Who still wants to drive, but we said no more.

Kyle Zimmer: (laughs)

Eric Close: But yeah, I grew up. My dad still is a surgeon in San Diego. And I grew in that type of family, and there were tons of books in our home. Medical books, encyclopedias, children’s books — and you know until recently, I just sort of took that for granted. Because my kids have lots of books and probably could start a library from all the books that they have, and I kind of took it for granted — sort of thinking that all kids have books, yet alone age appropriate books.

Verizon Yellow Pages — working with the cause of trying to help literacy and eradicate illiteracy — I found out facts like that there’s only one book for every 300 children in low-income communities. One book for 300 kids. Eighty percent of programs that are serving disadvantaged kids don’t even have any age-appropriate books, and what I mean by age appropriate books, I mean books that are appropriate for younger kids.

Kyle Zimmer: Right.

Eric Close: And then also I learned that 61% of low-income families don’t even have a book in their home. So how does a young child get interested in reading if they don’t even have a book to put in their hands? When we go out and we read to the kids and we hand out books, and I see these kids walk away with their first books, they grab this book — and anybody who’s been there with me, that’d be you too. When you’re there, you see them wrap their arms around this book.

Kyle Zimmer: Right!

Eric Close: They don’t want to let it go. They have this huge smile on their face and they can wait to take it home. They say, “I’m going to take it home and read it to my parents.”

Kyle Zimmer: Right!

Eric Close: A number of these kids, their parents may not read and so they actually have the opportunity to change the legacy in their family, if you will. So I’m proud to be involved with First Book. I know in the last four years, First Book’s given away 25 million books.

Kyle Zimmer: That’s right.

Eric Close: I’ve been part of being involved with that and encourage people to get involved. It’s been a lot of fun.

Kyle Zimmer: So it’s been a wonderful experience for First Book to have somebody of you stature, Eric, not just to step in with First Book, but to step in and become the voice of such a strong partnership between the public sector leaders like Verizon Yellow Pages. And you are a literacy champion for them. And I know that there are very, very few companies that have taken on the mantle of any social cause in the way that Verizon has and they’ve dedicated their employees and their resources and really made an extraordinary difference. Not just for First Book, but for literacy across the board. But all of us are dependent on having a powerful voice to carry that message and so we really owe you, and it’s become a tremendous resource for us.

Now if I could break in with a couple of questions. I will start the questioning and I know that people will be clamoring to line up and ask you a few themselves. So I have to ask you the first question which is what was your favorite book as a child?

Eric Close: Well I do know one of my favorite books was a book that I read called a A Wrinkle In Time.

Kyle Zimmer: Sure.

Eric Close: Which was a book that I loved. I loved a lot of the children’s books. Cat In The Hat obviously is one that I remember. One of the things that I love about A Wrinkle In Time was that was one of the first books that I read on my own. I really felt like a reader. I read a book and felt like I wasn’t reading a book that was for a five year old. It felt sort of grown up. So that’s why that book had an impact on me.

Kyle Zimmer: So do you have any favorite current books that you’re reading?

Eric Close: I read a lot and my favorite types of books to read are real-life adventure books . For example, I love reading tales about people who climb Mount Everest or sail around the world by themselves, because I know first of all my wife would never let me do that.

Kyle Zimmer: (laughs)

Eric Close: (laughing) And so secondly I’d probably be terrified myself to even — I mean you read these stories about these guys. They’re completely alone at sea for a 140 days. They don’t see a single person. They don’t see land. They don’t see a single person. They’re by themselves and they’re being battered by 60 to 70 mile an hour winds and 80 foot waves and they somehow find away to make it through and you just — you live vicariously through them and it really does come alive.

I read a great book recently called Shadow Divers by Robert Kurson, and it’s an incredible story about these guys that discover a German U-boat off the coast of New Jersey and in 250 feet of water. So you’re reading about these guys diving down into the dangerous depths and pretty exciting stuff. So I love those kind of books.

Kyle Zimmer: Why, that’s great!

Eric Close: Yeah.

Kyle Zimmer: Now, is there anyone — since you’re so dedicated to acting — is there anybody who you’ve read, about any historical figure that you would love to portray?

Eric Close: You know maybe when I get old…. Well, I don’t know if I would portray him, but some one that I read about was Walter Kronkite, who I absolutely loved. I grew up listening to his voice when I was a little kid, a newscaster like Tom Brokaw, and I loved him and I read a great book about him, but… I don’t know.

I wouldn’t mind playing — actually the book I told you about, the scuba diving books. One of the characters was a guy named John Patterson who dove these deep wrecks and was a maverick and ahead of his time in the diving world, when it comes to wreck diving. And they’re going to make a movie about that book eventually. That would be a fun character to play so, you never know!

Kyle Zimmer: [LOL] Stay tuned!

Eric Close: Yeah! Stay tuned!

Kyle Zimmer: Stay tuned!

Eric Close: See it’s out there now, so it might happen.

Kyle Zimmer: Oh, that’s very cool!

Eric Close: Yeah.

Kyle Zimmer: Now speaking of staying tuned, I suspect that there are some folks who are anxious to ask you their questions directly.

Eric Close: Sure.

Kyle Zimmer: And so if we can cue the operator and ask people to begin to electronically signal us if they would care to get in line and ask Eric their question.

Female Operator: Thank you! At this time if you like to ask a question simply press *1 on your telephone touch pad. You can play your question at * 2. Once again that’s *1 for questions. One moment, please!

Kyle Zimmer: Now as they are lining up, Eric, I’ll slide in one more. We know that everyone is crazy about your show, Without A Trace and I wondered is there anything that you can share with us about the life of Agent Fitzgerald or anything? You can spill all the upcoming plots for us.

Eric Close: Well, I don’t know what’s going to happen in season 5, yet. We’re going to start filming season 5 in about three weeks. But you know, Martin lives in the last season a pretty topsy turvy existence because he was injured and got addicted to painkillers.

Kyle Zimmer: Oh.

Eric Close: And that was a real tough journey for him, but he got through with the help of his friends and so that was challenging. It was challenging to portray that for a whole season, to be in that mindset. But it was also a lot of fun to do it.

People wonder, “Oh how can that be fun, to have to play a character who’s going through such a hard time,” but even like literacy you hope that by telling that story or being involved with First Book these kinds of things will help people. So there may have been someone out there watching the show who can identify with Martin’s struggle and maybe sought out help from somebody. So I always hope that that’s the case.

Kyle Zimmer: Terrific. It’ll be fun to see it. Now, are there questions lined up operator?

Operator: Thank you. Our first question comes from Janice.

Janice: Yes, Eric.

Eric Close: Hi, Janice.

Janice: I’m the Posse Mom from the Magnificent Seven fandom, long-time supporters of John Watson and all the cast. You play an illiterate — functional illiterate — in the Achilles episode?

Eric Close: That’s correct!

Janice: Did that influence you becoming involved in children’s literacy?

Eric Close: I don’t know directly, but I’ve always had a real passion for reading, and I was just looking for something interesting to do to make him a little more human. Because, you know, these cowboys are always portrayed as the heroes in the story, and I thought it would be interesting that — because I discovered cowboy poetry while I was researching the old West, and I thought, wouldn’t that be interesting if Vin actually was this tough, salty guy and to find out that he actually can’t read or write, but loves poetry.

So that’s how I came up with that idea, and I ran it by John Watson who was the executive producer, and he loved it and actually had Chad Everett who was from Medical Center Days.

Janice: Right. And McKenna.

Eric Close: Yeah. Yeah. And the McKenna. I’m actually in Oregon right now where we shot that show, and Chad wrote a poem for my character Vin Tanner which he recited in that show. So it’s a little lore for you.

Janice: Well, it was a very moving portrait and it really stirred a lot of discussion about illiteracy and what we can do about it.

Eric Close: I’m glad to know that. Because a lot of times people don’t know that there are a great number of adults out there who can’t read or write.

Janice: Functional.

Eric Close: Yeah. Exactly. It’s very important for them to have a place where they can feel comfortable to tell someone and say, “Listen, this is what’s going on and I need some help.” And also to make sure that the kids out there don’t get left behind and that they get a chance to read and write and get the same opportunities, and the thing about spurring interest for kids to read. Not only just for pure enjoyment of reading, but also to function in life. It’s so important.

You know, Verizon is really dedicated to the people in their communities, their customers in this cause, and all the areas where Verizon is involved. They get out there, because its great for the community and it helps people to move ahead in life.

You know, I would really have a difficult time, even having had the chance to go to college. But also to do what I do, I get a new script every five or six days that I have to read and, you know, look at and dialogue with the other actors and the writers about it. And so I have to be able to read. And it’s important and I’d say 99.9% of the jobs out there you have to be able to read. It’s important.

Janice: And it’s important for self-esteem and self-worth. I’ve worked with remedial tutoring.

Eric Close: Right.

Janice: The PACE program in a Christian school, and to see the change emotionally in a child when they find out there are books about their favorite interests. It’s just — you see a light in their eyes. It’s like God has given them one of the most precious gifts.

Eric Close: Absolutely. It is a great gift.

Kyle Zimmer: It’s very powerful. Now I’m going to invade and I’m sorry to cut you off, but we want to make sure everyone gets a chance. If we can go on.

Janice: Thank you, very much.

Kyle Zimmer: Certainly. Thank you.

Eric Close: Thank You.

Operator: Thank you. Our next questions comes from Helen.

Helen: Hi, Eric, it’s Helen here in the Los Angeles area. I’m looking forward to having a speed read in the month of July and I was wondering if you have, in your experience of doing speed reads around the country, any particular combinations that seem to be a winning combination of people who were serving as contestants, if you will.

Kyle Zimmer: (laughs)

Eric Close: You mean as far as the people who are actually doing the speed read?

Helen: Well, yes. The ones who were doing it — I attended the one that you were at in Los Angeles.

Eric Close: With Rhea Perlman?

Helen: Right, and they had firemen and that seemed to work well and I’m wondering if there is a combination like that that you feel is a good group to work with?

Eric Close: I think the best thing is to get anybody who has the passion for reading and cares about kids, and cares about their community and wants to make a difference. And I think you can find people in all different locations that would be willing to get on board. And if you just make it fun and exciting and challenging.

For what I brought away from that day was that there were just so many people who wanted to be a part of that and they really had a great time. What I often notice is that, you know, people are willing to take time away from their busy schedules and their job of just making a paycheck and just giving back. And I think, really, at the end of the day, that’s what really feels good in our lives when we can give back from some of the blessings that we have in our on lives.

Helen:Very good. Well, thanks a lot.

Eric Close: Thank you, Helen.

Kyle Zimmer: Thanks, and you know the other is it always helps if you can find a ham.

Eric Close: Yeah.

Kyle Zimmer: Someone who’s willing to ham it up is always a good edition to those events. You know, speed read, you can really make a difference in 15 seconds, and another way to make a difference very quickly is on The Literacy Site. Which is TheLiteracySite.com and as you know, Eric, because you’re featured on there right now.

The Literacy Site is a wonderful quick-to-give site where the general public is called upon to go to the site: www.TheLiteracySite.com and they click on the central button. And you’ve been wonderfully supportive of First Book, in our efforts to get out there with The Literacy Site and for every click, a book or a portion of a book, depending on what campaign is running, goes to a child. And that’s all the participant has to do, they don’t have to enter their names or anything else just hit that button and go!

Eric Close: Yeah and we did that. We did that in 2005, and the first time I challenged people to do that we raised over 20,000 books.

Kyle Zimmer: Fabulous! And they can be virtual volunteers in about ten seconds. And right now TheLiteracySite.com is running a special challenge featuring Eric as well. And so we urge everybody to through all the blogs, to get on there and click away because you can click once a day and it makes a real, genuine difference. It’s yet another way, Eric, that you’ve jumped in and really helped put books in kids’ hands.

Eric Close: Yeah, and I thank you, and I really encourage people to go to TheLiteracySite.com and to click. And I think at this time, correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe in this time, in this challenge, each click will be doubled.

Kyle Zimmer: That’s exactly right! That’s exactly right. So one click is worth two at this time. Now, are we ready for another question?

Operator: Thank you. Our question comes from Elizabeth.

Elizabeth: Hi.

Eric Close: Hi, Elizabeth

Elizabeth: Hi. I was just on the literacy site clicking on it. I’d like to say thank you for all the generous time and support that you do for all these programs for literacy. You know, taking the time out of your busy work day and all this.

I work in a school, and I know the purpose of literacy is very important, and when I see the smile on a child’s face when they’ve read a book that they couldn’t read a year ago, it just really lights up my face and I know they got it. So, I want to ask you, is there one time that you can think of that you were out and you saw a smile on a child’s face that really — that you said to yourself, “This is what it’s all about!”.

Eric Close: Well, I can think of a number of time that I was in Boston recently — actually just about a month ago — and we handed out some books to some kids there at a school. And to see — like I’d mentioned before, they wrapped their arms around it like it was a treasure that they just did not want to let go. Actually, if I remember, we gave out a couple of books and it just feels good to see that, and you don’t realize what an impact it has on the kid until you see that actually happen.

But you know it’s the feeling I get when I walk into a book store, and I want to pick up a book and I look around and there’s thousands of books. I think, “Oh I wish I could read all these books.” You know, I probably wouldn’t in a lifetime be able to read a tenth of these, but it’s…. Every time we do a book give away to the kids it feels good and I love to see that happen.

Elizabeth: Well, that’s great! It’s really good cause I know. I read to my children every night, too. Like you wrote that you do. And it’s important.

Eric Close: Oh yeah. My parents when I was very young, probably 5 years old, gave me a book of fairy tales. A big, thick, red book. So I’ve been reading them, and it’s full of, you know, Grimm fairy tales and all. Last night we read Rumpelstiltzkin.

So, you know, every night we have a different story and they just absolutely love it. And my seven year old — she’s almost eight now — she absolutely loves to read and is constantly reading. And she writes her own books, actually. She’s already written — she wrote a book this year. It was bound and everything.

Elizabeth: Wow!

Eric Close: And it’s called The Very Noisy Cricket.

Elizabeth: Oh, Wow!

Eric Close: It’s a wonderful, sweet little story and she read it in front of a group of people and she absolutely loves to do that. And my 5-year-old is writing books, but she doesn’t read or write yet, but she just kind of scribbles and asks me, “What does this say, dad?” And so I have to make up something. So it’s a lot of fun.

Elizabeth: Well, that’s so nice! And I also want to let you know that I really enjoy your show, Without A Trace. And I watch Magnificent Seven, too. And you’re such a good actor.

Eric Close: Thank you, Elizabeth .

Elizabeth: And thank you for your time and volunteering.

Eric Close: Thank you very much. And you know I meant that I encourage other people out there. You don’t just have to be a person on a TV show or an athlete. I think anybody, anybody out there, can get involved and do what I’m doing and they can — because we as individuals can have an impact even within our worksite.

You’re in the lunch room or at work and you can mention to someone and say “Hey, you know what I heard about this great program First Book,” and you can talk to them about it, tell them about it and you can also volunteer to go ahead and read to kids at school. The kids absolutely love it!

If you have children in school, a lot of times there’s the opportunity to be the mystery reader. You just talk to the teacher and say, “Hey, can I come and surprise, not only my own child, but the kids in the class,” and read a story to the kids. So I think everybody can get out there and be involved in some way too, with this cause of literacy.

Kyle Zimmer: That’s great! Thank you so much! Can we go to the next caller.

Eric Close: Thank you.

Elizabeth: Take care!

Operator: The final question comes from Alice.

Alice: Hi, there.

Eric Close: Been great, thank you!

Alice: A friend of mine just recently turned me onto Magnificent Seven. So I’m finding out there’s a ton of stuff on the website for that, and Without A Trace is my favorite show. So this is really fun to…

Eric Close: Fantastic!

Alice: …to have a chance to talk to you. I think one of the passions that I’ve always had have been books. I started reading to my daughter from the times she was born and the cuddling up in bed before you go to sleep at night and we would read and it just turned into this tradition that we still do today. And she’s nearly sixteen.

Kyle Zimmer: Oh, is that right!

Eric Close: So fantastic!

Alice: So, I know there’s been times when I’ve gone to PTA book sales and it just kind of astonishes me when parents are like, “Well, I’m not going to pay this much money for a book!” And I’m thinking how many videos do you own? And…

Eric Close: (laughing) Yeah! I know!

Alice: …compare it to the number of books.

Eric Close: I know, and you know that’s what so great about First Book. And what Verizon Yellow Pages is doing is that there are people who say, “I’m not going to pay this much for a book.”

Alice: Right!

Eric Close: Fact is, there are a lot of people who can’t afford the book. And what they’re doing is giving people an opportunity to get these books. And you know what’s really awesome — it’s very likely that some of those kids out there who don’t even have one book may end up becoming authors themselves one day just because of that.

The fact that they get that first book, they fall in love with reading and story telling, and the next thing you know our grandkids are reading their books. And my daughter she may become an author just because she loves it so much.

Alice: Well the one thing that my daughter started doing was going around to the arts sale that our neighborhood has every year and towards the end of the day when things tend to be left over, she started with her friends kind of buying up the used books. I know that they’re not like the new books. But a lot of the times you can get them for five cents or ten cents.

Eric Close: Yep!

Alice: They’ll pull their resources, they’ll buy them and then they take them and donate them at the soup kitchens.

Kyle Zimmer: Oh good for you!

Eric Close: That’s fantastic!

Alice: And I’m just so thrilled that she’s kind of learning to pass along that love of reading.

Kyle Zimmer: That’s great!

Kyle Zimmer: Hey, did you have a question specifically you wanted to ask Eric?

Alice: (pauses) I forgot my question!

Kyle Zimmer: oh! (laughing in the background)

Alice: But you know, I just wanted to thank him for everything he’s doing for illiteracy. I just think that’s very important.

Eric Close: Thank you.

Alice: Thank you for doing it.

Eric Close: Thank you, Alice. Tell your daughter thank you as well for what she’s doing. That’s an example of what I was talking about. It’s just getting out there and passing it along, and I’m thankful to people like your daughter and yourself. Thank you for doing that.

Kyle Zimmer: It’s terrific! Thank you so much! We’re going to have to call it a day here on the interview and questions portion, and Eric we thank you so much for your time.

Eric Close: You bet!

Kyle Zimmer: It’s lovely to hear you, and lovely to hear you inspire others to jump in and get active on behalf of kids across the country.

You know the thing that always — no matter how tired I get in the efforts here at First Book — the thing that always keeps me going is to recognize that if we turn the corner on literacy for one person, statistically speaking their children will be readers. And so it’s not like one of these illnesses, you know, like tuberculosis, in that where you hear decades later that it’s coming back . It’s just one of those problems that if one person at a time we fix it, we bring them across the bridge to becoming readers, and loving books, then in fact that whole family tree from that point on will be different and will be readers. And so it’s only through committed people like yourself and those you inspire that that’s going to happen.

So I just want to say thank you on behalf of everyone we work with at First Book, and all the children, the millions of children who we reach out to. So thank you so much! Thanks to everybody for listening and we look forward to any feedback you have. Please go to our website at www.firstbook.org and let us know what you think about these calls. Thank so much! Take care.

Eric Close: Thank you.

Announcer: Thank you for listening to this episode of the First Book podcast. Please visit the First Book blog at blog.firstbook.org for more information, stories, and features from the First Book community.