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Rescued by Books: Fostering Teen Literacy in Low-Income
Communities
LA
Review of Books:
5.05.2018 by Ruth Ebenstein
It
was a Young Adult novel that inspired teenaged Jonathan to turn his life
around. It motivated him to read, got him excited to learn, and steered him
away from dropping out of high school.
The
shy 15-year-old got to choose from hundreds of high-quality titles on display,
organized by genre, at a literacy outreach event held at his high school in Los
Angeles. It was an alternative school for students at risk of dropping out;
most were there due to failing grades, behavioral issues, and a history of
incarceration or expulsion.
The
event was facilitated by the Book Truck, a nonprofit that
provides literacy programming and free books to teenagers from low-income
families and in foster care. The book, which he chose with a volunteer, was the
first Jonathan had owned, the first he read that wasn’t assigned by a teacher —
and the first with a plotline in which he could imagine himself. That had never
happened before. An avowed non-reader, he swallowed the book in one sitting.
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Jonathan,
who asked that his name be withheld due to security concerns related to his
juvenile record, is representative of millions of teens across the United
States affected by a literacy crisis that is damaging their future prospects,
pushing them towards a cycle of poverty. These teens have little opportunity to
get turned on to reading and boost their literacy skills because they are
growing up in “book deserts.”
A book desert is
a low-income neighborhood devoid of bookstores and well-stocked libraries, with
limited access to print resources. In high-poverty urban communities, there
is only one
age-appropriate book for every 300 children, compared to 13 per
child in wealthier communities. Local
libraries are also often critically under-resourced in terms of collections,
budgets, and hours. And less
than 10 percent of low-income families take advantage of them. READ
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