This Sunday as my summer vacation to Ukraine was coming to an end, I was exploring the old quarters of the eclectic city of Kyiv. As I wandered through the neighborhoods I marveled at a city caught somewhere between ancient splendor, modern Europe, and its Soviet past. As I meandered past a McDonald’s, through a park with a statue of Lenin, and under the shadow of austere apartment buildings, I came upon a first-century monastery.

As I entered the high gate and climbed the treacherous stairs, I was reminded how far civilization has come from the days when this monastery was built. This fortress with its high walls and deep catacombs was built, among other things, to be a center of learning, and within its walls scholars copied books painstakingly by hand. Later in its history, its walls protected these priceless pieces of scripture and literature from attack and plunder, time and time again, as late as the Nazi invasion of Kyiv in 1941.

We have come a long way since the days when books were only for the wealthy, powerful and male. However, I couldn’t help but think that there is still a wall keeping too many people, especially children, from books and reading. Maybe someday others will examine First Book and our society and say that we were the era that finally brought down the fortress defenses of illiteracy by giving a child a book.