Two authors and staff from Kids Need to Read (KNTR) pulled into the Page Public Library parking lot on Oct. 12. It was special day for the library and the Mesa, Arizona, based children’s literacy foundation. It was the 50th event of their Grow Your Library (GYL) program.

The Chronicle spoke with KNTR Executive Director Jessica Payne and GRL Director Gary Mlodzik Thursday.

“We try to go to high-poverty communities all across the nation. We knew because it’s No. 50, we were going to load it up pretty good with special treats. We wanted to be in Arizona. We brought in our friends Tom and Lindy Schneider, who wrote the book that Tina [Mlodzik] reads as the primary book for all of our story times. It's called ‘Starfish on the Beach.’ We’ve been using that book. They went to our first event as celebrity authors back in 2015 in Moab. They’ve been with us at several events across the nation, North Carolina, Colorado. So we invited them here to this one.”

“I think it was actually Tom that said, ‘Why don't we look at Page? There's a lot of reservation area around there. The poverty level is probably going to be what meets our criteria.’ We researched it. It looked like a great fit. We called the library. They seemed very receptive to it, which is the key. If you don’t have staff members that are supportive of what you’re trying to accomplish, then it's not a good fit for us.”

GRL tries to find communities across the nation with poverty levels over 50%.

“The lowest one we ever did was only 43%,” said Mlodzik. “I think that was in Wyoming because we couldn’t find any higher poverty anywhere in Wyoming other than that 43%. But again, sometimes the numbers are skewed because even that little community library served a big rural area which was pretty low on resources. So it just seemed to be the best fit for that state, so to speak. But we go down to Mississippi, 100% poverty. We go down to Calexico, California. We just did a big event together, and that’s 100% poverty in Calexico.” 

Calexico is across the border from Mexicali, Mexico, about 50 miles west of the California-Arizona border. 

The organization is careful about the libraries they select.

“If you have a library, but you don’t have the proper staff there, it’s a building,” said Mlodzik, “With the active staff, people that believe in libraries, they’re there to serve the public, serve the children, get them involved. That’s an asset to your community. And that’s what we want to serve, somebody that’s going to take the 1003 books that are sitting there and suggest, ‘Hey, Jessica, I hear you like to read about this here. Have you checked out this book?’ and put that into her hands and grow that imagination from that child or get them involved in the next step of learning.”

Between the time their press release was sent out for the library event stating GRL was bringing 900 books, the number grew to 1,003 books. Libraries Ltd, an organization founded by Arizona’s former First Lady Judy Goddard, donated $1,000 to the cause. 

“They've helped us a number of times and said, ‘Hey, here's a $1,000. We want to be a part of what you do with that $1,000.’ We're able to go in, actually buy books,” Mlodzik said. 

Of the 1,003 books, valued at $14,000 retail, 900 books were donated from various publishers. 

“All of these books that we’ve gotten, because they've come from authors and publishers, they’re the newest things, usually,” said Jessica Payne. “We don't get a whole lot of classics or books that the library might already have. They are expensive, especially nonfiction. You can imagine with how expensive books are, and libraries themselves have such limited budgets. We’re giving them essentially a year, maybe even two years, worth of budgeting for new books.”

GYL often gives libraries multiple copies of popular authors.

“Some of the books that are high popularity, like Lauren Tarshis does, a series called ‘I Survived’ for your third, fourth, fifth, sixth grade readers,” said Mlodzik. “They're really an introduction for them to more chapter books, stories, history. Well, we know that’s popular. We gave them three sets of each of those 20 books so that they could have more than one checked out at a time, because we know it’s a very popular book for that reading age.”

Libraries are contacted in advance to determine their book needs, then KNTR staff tries to match the need with what they have in stock. 

In addition to books for the library, children can take home a book and often a copy of the Highlights Magazine. The publisher donates overruns of the iconic children’s magazine. When on the road, making multiple stops, occasionally a library has a larger turnout than anticipated. This can leave the travelers short of books to for the next stops, and they want to ensure every child gets a book.

“We went to North Carolina,” said Mlodzik. “We had three events over the course of 10 days, three different communities in North Carolina. You never know how many are going to show up. They might say, ‘I get 20 or 30 kids for story time,’ and 50 show up. All of a sudden, we don't have enough books for that third session – I'm at Barnes and Noble with my credit card. ‘Need 100 of these. We need 20 of these. We need 10 of these.’ And I'm buying books, and then we give those away.

“A lot of the children that we serve, they don't have books at home. So if we’re telling them that they get to take one book, that’s a choice. That’s a big choice because that’s their book. And how many children have come up to Tina at these events and said, do I really get to keep this?”

“We want to make sure that children have as much opportunity as possible,” said Payne.