We volunteered at a Nature Conservancy workday recently and ran into a retired feller — ended up in the same truck and started to talk. When he heard about First Book, he said “Oh, you’re just the person I need to talk to.”

Xavier [not his real name :)] has been working with a rural kiddo who he said had no understanding of the joy that comes from reading and that he cannot get him there. Nothing interested him. Xavier asked if I knew of books that would be attractive to him. The boy’s situation was single mom, rundown region, poor schools, little access to libraries. But here’s this lovely man taking an interest. First Book will get him some books and some input about authors that might pique the boy’s curiosity.

It brings up the very real but unknown statistic that literacy rates for rural populations are disproportionately low. Often people think of downtown urban children as the worst-affected and the kids out in the sun-drenched countryside as getting along okay. Not so. Rural kids suffer the lack and they suffer it badly. First Book has known this for a long time and it’s why we create Advisory Boards in rural counties; why Idaho and Ohio, for example, have been focal points for growth. Book Relief took us into the rural areas of the Gulf Coast too. There is much to do and the story is more complicated than first impressions may indicate. As usual!!