You are the founder of the “Read or Else” literary campaign. What is the goal of this movement and why is it so important?
“Read or Else” is the by-product of a program that my brother Eddie Taylor and I ran, teaching incarcerated parents about the importance of literacy and how they can still promote literacy to their children despite being incarcerated. Three out of four kids who cannot read proficiently by the fourth grade will end up in jail or on welfare. Two out of three kids who cannot read are going to jail. Seventy-five percent of [inmates] in this country cannot read above a fourth-grade level. Over 80 percent of all kids that go to juvie [juvenile hall] cannot read above a fourth-grade level. There are so many statistics that are directly connected to literacy. And the fact that there are so few books that really speak to our children, it’s a testament that the system is working against us to want to be able to read.
