At age 19, Yohannes Gehregeoris borrowed a soft-cover romance novel entitledLove Kittenthat changed his life forever. Born in rural Ethiopia to an uneducated cattle merchant who 1 his son's education, Gebregeorgis had seen a few books in school. But it was the experience of having a book of his own that sparked a lifelong 2.
Today, at 56, Gebregeorgis is 3 libraries and literacy programs to connect Ethiopian children with books. "Most Ethiopian children have only 4 to textbooks in the classroom," says Gebregeorgis. "Books children read 5 of school, those are the spices of education."
Forced to 6 Ethiopia to the United States as a political refugee in 1981, Gebregeorgis finally 7 himself through university, receiving a graduate degree 8 library science. He took a 9 at the San Francisco Childhren's Library in 1985. There, he realized the 10 children's books could have on a child's sense of wonder and vision.
"Children could imagine everything from books — 11 to other cultures, to other people, to other children, and to the universe 12," recalls Gebregeorgis. "It gives them hope and pleasure. It gives them everything that they cannot 13get in regular textbooks." 14 Gebregeorgis found that there were none in Amharic, the primary language of Ethiopia. When the library 15 $1, 200 for the purchase of Ethiopian books, Gebregeorgis was 16 to find any.
So he wrote one and founded Ethiopia Reads in 1988. The nonprofit 17 his efforts to bring children's libraries to Ethiopia. In 2002, Gebregeorgis 18 his job and his home and returned to Ethiopia. Then he opened the Shola Children's Library on the first floor of his home.
Reading storybooks to children who have no access to television or computers, Gebregeorgis believes that literacy and education will 19 his poor homeland affected by AIDS. "With literate children there is no 20 as to how much we can do."
