Reading Ready Pittsburgh helps kids and parents develop a love of books | KD Sunday Spotlight
Off East 8th Avenue, in Homestead, you'll find B is For Books. It's an extraordinary bookstore, and when you step inside, you'll see the value of early language skills and early literacy through books.
Mary Denison started it all.
She's the founder of the non-profit Reading Ready Pittsburgh that's behind this bookstore. Denison said she retired from the Children's Institute and is working in schools.
"I'd seen that there were kids who were coming to school who were unprepared for school," said Denison.
It inspired her to start this non-profit, which started with the bookbag rotation program called Raising a Reader. Through that program, children get a red bag of books, then once they're done, they pass it along to other children in the program, and the rotation continues.
Then, Denison decided to expand the non-profit's mission and programs to include Dolly Parton's Imagination Library. With Parton's program, Reading Ready Pittsburgh began offering free books delivered to homes, which helped kids during a time of isolation with the COVID-19 pandemic.
"So then after that, that's not enough, right. Then we started doing more literacy programming, and we have little libraries out in the community," said Denison.
With the little libraries, Reading Ready Pittsburgh builds, fills, and maintains 12 little giveaway libraries in the Mon Valley.
Now, having opened this free bookstore in February 2024, children can get three free books every time they come into B is for Books.
"The response to it has been dramatic, and we are so happy to have all of these people involved and to have so many books coming through our organization every month," said Denison.
Most of the books inside the bookstore are donated by the community for the youth in our community.
"So it is a community effort with donations, with volunteers, and then keeping this all nice and beautiful," Denison said. "Thirty volunteers drive the work forward and help instill a love a literature in our youngest little learners."
"It's amazing to see families come in, just being grateful, because books are expensive," Program Director, Megan Chips, said.
Now the book bag rotation program has expanded to about 1,2000 children.
Children like Jermaine, his mom, Markeya Stewart, takes her three-year-old to B is for Books regularly. She works down the street at a daycare, which frequently brings their kids in too.
When she talked to KDKA, she mentioned the "Raising a Reader" program making a difference for her son's reading at home.
"You see all his little friends running around with their little bags of books, so I think it's wonderful," Stewart said. "We're able to start a whole new library at home."
It gets books into children's lives early and everywhere.
In addition to all the work this non-profit does, it also hosts events for kids every month. Next month, in June, it'll have a "B is for Bugs" event in collaboration with the Carnegie Science Museum.
Teachers or those who work with children and families, like social workers, can go online and order a whole box of books that a "Reading Ready Pittsburgh" librarian will put together for them to pick up.
If you want to donate books or even volunteer, "Reading Ready Pittsburgh" is always welcoming both. For more information on the non-profit and its programs, click here.
