On this West Virginia Morning, book deserts are places without nearby libraries or bookstores, which can be very hard for children just learning to read. Morgantown High School senior Rania Zuri is trying to fight that and bring books to kids in West Virginia. Inside Appalachia’s Mason Adams spoke with her.
On this West Virginia Morning, book deserts are places without nearby libraries or bookstores, which can be very hard for children just learning to read. Morgantown High School senior Rania Zuri is trying to fight that and bring books to kids in West Virginia. Inside Appalachia’s Mason Adams spoke with her.
Also, in this show, a number of health-related issues have been on the table this legislative session — from gender-affirming care, to PEIA coverage and even foster care splitting up DHHR. For our Friday reporter roundtable on The Legislature Today, Chris Schulz spoke with WVPB’s Appalachia Health News Reporter Emily Rice and Allen Siegler from Mountain State Spotlight.
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High school student Rania Zuri has made it her mission to end book deserts in West Virginia. Book deserts are places without libraries and bookstores, threatening literacy rates for young children. A senior at Morgantown High School, Zuri founded the LiTEArary Society to provide books to preschool children across West Virginia.
This story originally aired in the Feb. 3, 2023 episode of Inside Appalachia.
High school student Rania Zuri has made it her mission to end book deserts in West Virginia.
Book deserts are places without libraries and bookstores, threatening literacy rates for young children. A senior at Morgantown High School, Zuri founded the LiTEArary Society to provide books to preschool children across West Virginia.
She recently spoke with Inside Appalachia host Mason Adams.
This conversation has been lightly edited for clarity.
Zuri:I’ve always been a bibliophile my whole life, and I had a classics book club in middle school. But in ninth grade, I was working on a project to set up a small library for young girls, when I learned about book deserts and the vast book deserts that exist in our own country. I decided to combine my book club with my passion for ending the book desert into the LiTEArary Society, which is a play on words of literary and tea. We are an entirely youth-led 501(c)(3) nonprofit with the mission of ending book deserts for preschool ages three to five from disadvantaged families. At this age, the children are too young to check out a book themselves from the library, and their families or caregivers don’t necessarily have the disposable income to go out and buy books. That means Head Start, because it is the federal preschool program for preschool children from households at or below the poverty line.
Adams: Once you started to dig in, what did book deserts actually look like on the ground?
Zuri: Well, it’s definitely been very different from just reading about it. But as I went out, and I traveled throughout the state, and I’ve been traveling throughout Appalachia, in the most remote and rural parts of the region, and seeing that these children – they have their faces, they have stories, and they have backstories – I have been constantly met with questions at every stop. There’s always new stories and new faces, but always the same question: “Can we take this book home?” And so it’s always a delight for me to tell them that it was their book to take home and call their own.
Adams: Can you tell me about your childhood and what your reading experience was like?
Zuri:I wasn’t a kid that had everything. I didn’t have the latest toys or video games and things like that. But I always had books. I was so fortunate enough to always have books in my life. They’re just so important to have as a child, as there really is a magic in reading. I truly believe that books are a ladder out of poverty. That’s where kind of the inspiration of my mission came from, from my own background. I was the kid that always had a board book or princess book, whatever.
Members of the LiTEArary Society at Morgantown High School. Courtesy of Rania Zuri
Adams: So you helped found the LiTEArary Society and then this past year, you all gifted a brand new book to every single preschool child in Head Start across West Virginia. That sounds like it took a lot of work.
Zuri: Oh, it did. It took a very long time. I called this project the West Virginia Head Start Road Tour. It was almost 7,000 brand new books in total, and I traveled to every single Head Start center in the state to donate these new books. I held reading circles with the children. Many of the children in Head Start didn’t have any books at home. It was my favorite part to give them the books. Some of the children, when I handed out the books, they were jumping up and down from excitement. That was truly a delight.
Rania Zuri signs her book, “It’s Mountain Music to My Ears” at the West Virginia Tourism Center. Courtesy of Rania Zuri
Adams: Now you’ve gone from bibliophile, to mountain book ambassador, to author. Tell us about this new book that you’ve been working on.
Zuri: My latest initiative has a musical aspect to it. I wrote and illustrated a series of rhyming Appalachian-themed children’s picture books about an Appalachian hare named Billy Bob. My first book in the series is called “It’s Mountain Music to My Ears.” It tells a musical adventure of the Appalachian hare named Billy Bob, who goes through the hills and hollers of West Virginia, and he meets different Appalachian animals that each play different Appalachian musical instruments like the spoons, the mountain dulcimer, the mandolin, the banjo, washboard.
Zuri says her next book is already in the works. She’ll be promoting it soon.
This week on Inside Appalachia, we meet a West Virginia high school student whose love of reading inspired her to bring books to young children. We also check in on people who were displaced by historic flooding in Kentucky. What’s happening now that we’re deep into winter? And we find advice for people navigating the difficulties of caring for aging parents.
This week, we meet a West Virginia high school student whose love of reading inspired her to bring books to young children.
We also check in on people who were displaced by historic flooding in Kentucky. What’s happening now that we’re deep into winter?
And we find advice for people navigating the difficulties of caring for aging parents.
You’ll hear these stories and more this week, Inside Appalachia.
Maybe you’ve heard about food deserts. These are places where there’s little access to fresh food, but there’s another kind of desert in our region that affects the literacy rates of young children. Book deserts are areas where there aren’t libraries or bookstores.
Rania Zuri, a senior at Morgantown High School in West Virginia, is the founder of an organization that provides books to preschool children across the state.
Sit For A Spell In The Story Parlor And Hear A Story
Appalachians love telling stories. Lies, yarns, and good ole fashioned tall tales. In fact, the International Storytelling Center is based in Jonesborough, Tennessee. Just across the state line in Asheville, North Carolina, a young family is cultivating another place for people to gather to share stories. Matt Peiken at Blue Ridge Public Radio reports.
How To Help Manage Legal Issues For Aging Parents
Helping aging parents can involve a lot more than getting them to the doctor, church and the grocery store. It might mean managing their checkbook, their bills and their treatment.
WVPB News Director Eric Douglas explores care giving in “Getting Into Their Reality: Caring For Aging Parents.” He recently spoke with Franki Parsons, a lawyer who specializes in legal and estate planning.
Ethiopian Coffee Ceremony Brings People Together In Moorefield, WV
Moorefield, West Virginia is home to about 3,300 people – about 1 in 10 are immigrants. That includes a small community from Eritrea and Ethiopia. Many work at the chicken processing plant in town, Pilgrim’s Pride. The hours are long and don’t leave much time for socializing. Still, members of that East African community continue to practice a tradition they’ve brought from home: the coffee ceremony.
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Our theme music is by Matt Jackfert. Other music this week was provided by The Company Stores, Hillbilly Gypsies, Watchhouse, Long Point String Band and Ona.
Bill Lynch is our producer. Our executive producer is Eric Douglas. Kelley Libby is our editor. Our audio mixer is Patrick Stephens. Zander Aloi also helped produce this episode.
You can send us an email at InsideAppalachia@wvpublic.org.
