Taylor Swift has teamed with Scholastic to donate 6,000 children's books to Pennsylvania's Reading Public Library, located a few miles from Wyomissing, where the country singer and actress grew up.
The books, aimed at kids in preschool to grades 12, were equally divided among the main library and three branches, and include everything from picture books and easy readers to chapter books and YA novels, says Frank Kasprowicz, the library's director.
The donation couldn't have come at a better time. Reading is a financially distressed city of 88,000 and the flight of its manufacturing and industrial base has earned it the unwelcome distinction of having the largest share of its residents living in poverty, , according to new Census Bureau data. The New York Times even ran an article last month called, "Reading, Pa., Knew It Was Poor. Now It Knows Just How Poor."
Those hard times have no doubt hit its libraries hard. "We're having a difficult time," says Kasprowicz, explaining that state and city budget cuts two years ago have led to layoffs of half of the library's fulltime staff and reduced hours. "We're cut to the bare minimum and struggling to stay alive."
A phone call from Swift's PR staff last spring was a pleasant surprise. It took months for librarians to help select and catalog the books. Then last week, there was an official announcement, complete with a daylong celebration that involved games, singing, kids dressing up as the Grammy Award-winning pop star, and even a geography lesson called "Where in the World is Taylor Swift."
"It's only been a few days since kids have had access to the books, and there's still a buzz," says Kasprowicz, explaining that all 6,000 books have Taylor Swift book plates on their covers. Although Swift didn't attend the celebration in person, having a teen celebrity of her caliber donate books will not doubt help motivate kids and teens to read, he adds.
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