One of the happiest moments of my life was the day I learned each of my daughters could read. The other was when I learned that they actually enjoyed it — one of them more than the other.
Asha could spend hours with one she plucked from the Junie B. Jones series. Jamila, on the other hand, preferred the American Girl stories.
When I was growing up, there were few books in my childhood home, but I still have fond memories of my school librarian, Mrs. Lewis, who nurtured my love for the written word.
Thanks to her, I learned early on that books were my window to the world far beyond my side of the railroad tracks, providing an infinite number of places to behold, places I might otherwise never see, people I might otherwise never meet.
I imagine years from now there will be tens of thousands of metro Atlanta kids who will look back on their lives and feel the same appreciation for Marlene Zeiler, the 82-year-old spitfire who two years ago founded the nonprofit Children Read.
After years of manning her Tall Tales Book Shop in Toco Hills, after overseeing two expansions, Zeiler decided it was time to retire.
At 80, who wouldn’t?
Then one morning while walking and listening to an NPR interview on her Walkman, Zeiler heard a story about Dani Swope, who was collecting kindergarten books and giving them to children in her Portland, Ore., neighborhood who didn’t have any.
Zeiler couldn’t remember when books weren’t a part of her life.
“I loved them,” she said the other day. “I loved reading.”
Suddenly retirement was slipping over the horizon.
Back home that day, Zeiler did a Google search to find more information on a study cited in that NPR report. What she found was startling.
Sixty percent of low-income children didn’t have books in their homes. Sixty percent.
On a trip to Cape Hatteras, Zeiler let her husband in on her dream.
“What if I collect pre-K books and try to find places to give what I collect,” she asked him.
Michael Zeiler thought it a magnificent idea.
Thus began the search that in just two years has put more than 17,000 books into the hands of low-income children attending Sheltering Arms Early Education and Family Centers and the Partnership for Community Action in Clarkston.
Cristel Williams, spokeswoman for Sheltering Arms, Georgia’s oldest nonprofit early childhood education program, said Children Read has donated thousands of books to its students.
Zeiler not only donates books to the centers, Williams said, but she sticks around to interact with and read to the children.
“It’s a very personal experience and one that’s very impactful to our children,” she said.
A mother of four and grandmother of eight, Zeiler knows from experience that the sooner children read, the better their chances of becoming lifelong readers and successful students.
“It’s key,” she said. “The data has been confirmed. If children don’t have reading skills by third grade, they don’t do well.”
Zeiler didn’t have to look far to find the books. She had a list of avid readers way long, old costumers who frequented Tall Tales.
She sent a letter to each of them asking for their gently used children's books, and they began pouring in. Churches, Girl Scout troops, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and community groups set out collection boxes. The Goddard School is collecting books this month from each of its metro Atlanta schools and so far has collected more than 12,000 that it will donate to Children Read. Its goal is 25,000 by Oct. 1.
“It’s definitely grass-roots,” Zeiler said.
Volunteers, including her husband, help clean and repair them.
A donated space — four rooms total — in the 2600 block of Druid Hills became her workshop.
Cindy Jaret, a retired a pre-K teacher, has been volunteering since August because she likes Marlene but mostly because she loves the idea of getting books into the hands of kids who don’t have access to them.
Last Tuesday, the only day Children Read is open to take donations, she was there at her work station, spit shining one book after the other with Windex, preparing and rebounding the pages with glue. With a smile.
“It’s such a genius idea,” Jaret said. “And every time I come through the door, I see someone I like. Marlene is the most wonderful person in the world.”
To date, Zeiler estimates she’s gifted more than 1,000 kids with five books each. That’s not counting the mini books she gives to parents of infants.
Being able to give out kids’ books is heartwarming, but for Zeiler, Children Read is more about fulfilling a need.
Middle-income kids know what a title means, what an author and binding are.
“They have a step up that low-income kids don’t,” she said. “I just can’t think of a downside to this. We all have read to our children and it’s inconceivable that some parents don’t because they’re overworked or don’t have time to go to the library.”
Now they don’t have to. Zeiler will simply bring the books to them.
I hope she never stops.
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