The Bring on the Books Blog

The Bring on the Books Foundation is a by youth for youth 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that advocates literacy and donates books to children who are abused, abandoned, homeless, and underprivileged. We are a tax deductible non-profit committed to providing books and inspiration to children across the nation. Every child deserves a book—a tool of empowerment and enlightenment. It’s this belief that fuels our existence.

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Books Break Barriers: Faiza Haq

In the last few years of high school, I have not been able to travel very much. However, in my own way, I have been able to leave my home many times in those years. I have traveled miles and distances that have allowed me to explore different cultures, societies and their people. To do this I didn’t use a plane, a train, a car or any sort of motor transportation. My method was easy, it was low cost; I picked up a book.

It has been my passion to read books from a really young age. Books became my portal to travel, to any place, any time, to any era. From the comforts of my bed, Anton Chekhov helped me travel back to Russia in the late nineteenth century, Gabriel Garcia Marquez opened my eyes to the South American culture and Jhumpa Lahiri became my door to understanding Indian culture from a different perspective. With every book I became enlightened about a new place, their people and their family values. Books became a substitute in the place where I was supposed to eat different cuisines, come across different dialects and explore the world.

In my opinion anybody, young or old, should have the experience of letting a book take them around the world. It truly is a beautiful journey.

-Faiza Haq, New York University

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“The universe is made of stories, not atoms.” —Muriel Rukeyser 

More info at Catapult[dot]co

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Hey, hey. Follow our parent company, Catapult. 

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Books Break Barriers: Zack Kodiyattu

When I was younger, I read profusely. Every week, my mother would take my sisters and I to the library. Here, we would each check out upwards of thirty books, all to be read and returned by the following week and replaced with thirty or so more books. Although I did not realize it then, reading helped me grow my ideas, expand my imagination, and challenge my intellect. Bring on the Books in many ways reminds me of my mother. Like her, it also opens doors and expands opportunities for children to grow their ideas, expand their imagination, and challenge their intellect through books. Through the simple notion of recycling unused books and giving them to children who have little access to them, Bring on the Books hopes to equalize opportunities and change the world. Who knew that books could change the world? I guess mothers are always right.

 -Zack Kodiyattu, Alumni of Council Rock High School South

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Books Break Barriers: Melanie Zheng

My love of reading has always been an integral part of my character—I can distinctly remember begging my mom to let me check out more than the library’s book limit each and every visit. Even now, my local public library is one of my most favorite places in the world. I remember that same excitement over starting a new book and believe in Bring on the Book’s mission to share this joy with others. Reading has given me so much, and I want other kids to grow up sharing this love of books. Not only is reading a fun escape from my everyday life into my own imagination, but also the way I unintentionally learned the most as a child. I remember learning new words—just by knowing inherently what the author would have meant, history through a character’s experiences, and compassion by realizing that everyone has their own story.

 -Melanie Zheng, University of Maryland

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Books have taught me to be curious. They have made me crave learning and experiencing new knowledge and ideas. They have allowed me to explore the deepest recesses of the mind and the farthest out places in the universe. But most of all, they have taught me to always ask questions. The story that really started it for me was Isaac Asimov’s aptly named, The Last Question. It’s a short story with one of the greatest endings I have ever encountered. It is about evolution, the future, and the never ending quest for knowledge. The story taught me that no matter what, it is always important in life to ask questions, be curious, and keep an open mind. It is my belief that books have the ability to teach these lessons and open up individuals to new ideas and inspire curiosity.

Dan Eddowes, Alumni of Council Rock High School South

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The reason I love books so much is because they allow me to gain perspective into someone else’s life. Books have made me think differently and have taught me about people, places, and things I would have never learned about otherwise. I was lucky to learn at a young age how amazing libraries are. My favorite book is Marcus Zusak’s The Book Thief. I was introduced to this book when I was in Reading Olympics, and it became my favorite because of Zusak’s beautiful style of writing and the book’s many themes. Reading has enriched my life and made me a more thoughtful and open-minded person. Autobiographies have inspired me, non-fiction has made me more knowledgeable, and fiction has taken me on adventures. On a larger scale, imagine how different the world would be if J.K. Rowling never wrote Harry Potter. Books, which have had a huge effect on my life, have had an even larger effect on the world. I cannot imagine a life without books. It is so important to me that children everywhere have the opportunity to read stories, and Bring on the Books is making this a reality.

Lauren Sauers, Alumni of Council Rock High School South

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With the advent of e-readers, books on the subway are getting harder and harder to spot. It takes dedication to get a sense of what people are reading these days. At The Awl, Ben Dolnick sets out to catalogue a week’s worth of sightings, which included a man reading Cloud Atlas and The Stranger and a teenage girl reading Thornton Wilder’s Our Town. You could also read our own Nick Moran on the question of whether e-readers are really green.

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also you could always follow @coverspy!

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It’s true! Us, or any of our international spy teams will tell you what folks are reading out there. 

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I literally squealed when I coverspy-ed one of my own books over the weekend but played it cool like I just read something on my phone instead.

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Books can not be killed by fire. People die, but books never die. No man and no force can abolish memory… In this war, we know, books are weapons. And it is a part of your dedication always to make them weapons for man’s freedom.

 Franklin D. Roosevelt (via vintageanchorbooks)

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I devour books. I’m sometimes obsessive really. When I find a story that draws me in there is really nothing anyone can do to stop my mania. But I think that a desire to read and become engrossed in a story is a beautiful thing. It’s not like watching a television show or a movie. In those cases you’re just mindlessly watching someone else’s depiction of a story. Yes – when an author writes a scene for you he or she is doing much the same thing – but in books the interpretation and visualization of the moments and characters are all up to you. There is neither music nor sound effects to guide you – and you don’t even have the aid of skilled actors to pull your heartstrings. But, when you’re reading, you’re by yourself – it’s all up to you to bring the story to life. You recreate each moment and that is what makes reading so special – so yeah it’s happening all in your mind, “but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?”

Humayra Mayat, New York University

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I have, on multiple occasions, cried while reading a book. I have also laughed and sighed and gasped and giggled. When I read books I become completely immersed. I feel the emotions of the characters so closely and I quickly leave behind the real world and enter into the world of the book. I love getting lost in a book; I can escape to a new world, a new story. Reading is a great outlet no matter what I am feeling. If I am feeling bored, books are there for me to find adventure and excitement. If I’m feeling lonely, books are there for me to make new friends. If I am feeling stressed, books are there for me to find peace and quiet, to forget my problems for a little while. I love reading. Reading has always been there for me and it’s helped me grow as a person and as an intellectual. Bring on the Books is important to me because it allows me to let others have the chance to read; the chance to have the wonderful outlet and experience of books. Spreading the joy that books and reading brings is one of the best things about Bring on the Books and the good that comes from this organization is amazing.

Carolyn Lane, University of Maryland 

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Books Break Barriers: Sana Mayat

I’ve always loved reading, but during the summer when I was eleven, I really started to binge-read. It was when I actually started using my library card and would scan through the stacks, picking up random books that “looked interesting.” That summer, I read Harry potter. It seems childish that Harry Potter would be one of my all time favorites, but it is. It opened me up to reading books that went well beyond the 200 page mark. It introduced me to so many characters that I was bound to find one I could relate to and when I look back to the time when I was eleven, twelve, and thirteen, Harry Potter is one of the things that comes to mind.

Reading is something that is really invaluable to me. Last summer, I read two works of nonfiction about North Korea. Both were written in memoir-form and it was amazing how an author could take something so serious and frame it like a story so that I would have to step back several times throughout the novel and say, “Wow. This is all real. This is a true story.” They make me lose myself in their writing, make me attached to every character, make my emotions rise and fall with every page so much that even when I’m finished, I can’t stop thinking about what happened beneath the cover.

— Sana Mayat, New York University

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Andrea Frank, Alumni of Council Rock High School South

I have always loved to read. When I was a kid, I had an hour each night to settle down with whatever novel was currently being subjected to my investigation, and was often caught reading under the covers by flashlight after my parent-mandated bedtime had passed. Although I’ve still to this day never set foot outside of the country, thanks to books, I have “set mind” all over the world, and even in alternate universes. Books have challenged me to empathize with hardships I could only imagine, solve problems with tools that don’t even exist in my world, and understand and appreciate foreign cultures and mythologies.

— Andrea Frank, Alumni of Council Rock High School South

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Books Break Barriers: Jason Herrit

As a kid, I loved to read. It didn’t matter what from the Magic Tree House series and Harry Potter series to the Swiss Family Robinson and Frankenstein. As I got into high school reading became a chore. Assigned literature and textbooks over endowed with facts could not provide the enjoyable experience of a well-described passage or the intimate detail of a character’s internal or societal struggle. There was the occasional inspiring novel such as To Kill a Mockingbird that was dissected in class, but factual information of the sciences never provided a sense of adventure that came with reading just because. Eventually, the book series A Song of Ice and Fire was brought to my attention as way to spend my winter break off from college. With their highly-detailed imagery, multiple character perspectives, and intricately woven plot, the five current books in the series (with two more on the way) didn’t disappoint. While the main focus of the series is to entertain, the underlying themes of the book center on perseverance and honor, which I can incorporate into my life as growing older precipitates many changes that I may or may not be fond of. These books made me realize, as I am thrilled to admit, that a lifelong love of reading can always be rediscovered.

— Jason Herrit, Alumni of Council Rock High School South

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Books Break Barriers: Hina Afridi

Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light,” Albus Dumbledore told Harry Potter in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Askaban. This one statement held such importance in my life as it drew upon the idea of finding joy in times of misery. Reading the Harry Potter series at such a young age inspired me to appreciate the gifts that life offered and not to allow these gifts to be overshadowed by the obstacles that I would come to encounter. Bringing such positive ideals to the surface was part of the joys of reading Harry Potter. Reading these novels allowed me to enter into the enchanted realm of wizardry. I was elated every time I opened those familiar novels and found my favorite characters on the Quidditch field or in the potions classroom. Harry Potter allowed me to connect with those I may never have even said a word to and allowed me to tap into my creative side by expanding my imagination.

-Hina Afridi, New York University

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Books Break Barriers: Julian Antal

Up until about 5th grade, reading was my least favorite subject in school. Naturally, as a young naïve kid I didn’t want to participate in anything I despised doing, which at the time was reading. One weekend I ended up getting grounded and the only activity I could do was to unfortunately read. I ended up picking the book with the coolest cover on it, and when I opened up that book my perspective on reading and its importance changed forever. This book that was called the “Hobbit”, which was written by an incredibly creative and witty author named J.R.R. Tolkien. The story of the “Hobbit” instantly grabbed my attention and took my imagination on a wild ride. This experience gave me an insatiable hunger for all types of literature. Beyond this point, reading has become an integral part of my life and I believe that it has given me the opportunity to develop as an individual and broaden my horizons. Reading gives young people an opportunity to have an enjoyable and beneficial hobby while extending vocabulary and writing skills.

Giving others chances to read is one of the greatest gifts you can ever give to someone as it allows them to grow as an individual and experience an activity that could potentially change their lives forever.

—Julian Antal, Alumni of Council Rock High School South