If the schools in the city really went to the mat for the kids, especially about reading, they'd pressure the city to have neighborhood library hours equal to the suburban libraries which are open till 9:00 every night and are open Sundays. Here the libraries close at 6:00 or 7:00 and are not open on Sunday. If that sounds untrue to you, it isn't. I know it seems impossible that New York City would have such meager hours.

When Jonathan Kozol wrote 'Illiterate America' in 1985, he said 60 million adults or about 1/3 of the adult population were seriously illiterate. They couldn't read or couldn't read well enough to function as fully-participating citizens of our democracy. I'm aware of that from holding my sign. Many people stare at it as though it were in some other language. Some who can just make out what it says, let me know they can read it by saying Absolutely or Ain't That the Truth as though they could read easily. One bright-looking woman who I tutored in an adult literacy class a few years ago told me she had headaches when she got home from work from staring so hard at the pages of a book on the subway to make it look like she was reading it.