I grew up in libraries, or at least it feels that way. I was ________ in small town of Cleveland, just a few ________ from the public library. I went there several times a week with my mother. She and I would walk in together, but ________ we passed through the door, we each headed to our ________ section. The library might have been the first place I was ever given ________.

Even when I was maybe four or five years old, I was ________ to head off on my own. Then, after a while, my mother and I would reunite at the checkout counter with our ________. Together we’d ________ as the librarian pulled out the date card and stamped it with the checkout machine.

When I was older, I usually walked to the library by myself, ________ back as many books as I could. Sometimes, I did go with my mother, and the trip would be as happy as it had been when I was ________. When I ________ my mother these days, since she died two years ago, I like to ________ us in the car together, going for one more impressive trip to our library.

My parents valued books. They believed that you read a book for the ________ of reading it. You didn’t read it in order to have a(n) ________ that had to be housed and looked after forever. The reading of the book was a journey. There was no need for ________.

Steph Clemence always intended to go to ________. But life has a ________ to throw obstacles in the way. Growing up, she was always on the move, ________ 25 different schools as her mother divorced and remarried several times.

________, she had good grades and considered herself college bound. But when her stepfather ________ tragically, paying for college became ________. She got married, found a job and tried to figure out how to ________ a life off her planned track.

The ________ came one afternoon, when she found two stapled (钉好的) pages ________ “Mrs. Clark’s Book List” in her bedroom. It was from the English teacher she’d had her ________ years, Dorothy Clark. “Some of you might not go on to higher education” Mrs. Clark said, “but you can continue to ________.” It wasn’t ________, the teacher announced, but it could be a road map.

And so it began. It was 1970. “I was ________ and determined to improve myself,” she says. Starting at the ________, she would read every book in the order they appeared.

Now Steph is 70 and she ________ did get to college. But she has only four books left. She expects to ________ them sometime in 2023.

“Each of the books has ________ something to who I am and how I see the world,” she says. “They’ve opened so many doors for me. I’m no expert, but I now have the ________ to see why things happened and what it might mean.” She wishes she could thank Mrs. Clark and share with her teacher ________ reading the works on her ________ has changed her life.

Danay Ferguson loves to read. Her parents often find her ________ past her bedtime racing to the end of a story. “If you’re ________, you can be in your own world and do almost anything you ________,” she says.

Danay wanted to open a bookstore, so she did some ________. She learned that in low-income neighborhoods, there may be only 1 book for every 300 kids. She decided that needed to ________. So at age eight, Danay started an organization. Reading Heart collects books that are donated (捐赠) by people. Then Danay and her friends ________ the books to kids in schools and low-income neighborhoods.

On visits to ________, Danay turns the book giveaway into a ________. With dancing, free T-shirts, and tables of books, her “Book Tour” has visited more than 150 schools in her area to get kids ________ about reading at her reading party. After kids choose their books, Danay gives them a ________.

“They can keep their book, ” she says. “But when they’re done with it, they share it with a friend.” By ________ books, Danay explains, kids get to read ________. “It’s like building mini libraries for each kid. When we give 500 kids a free book to ________, each kid has the ________ to read 500 books! It’s a(an) ________ feeling to see a kid’s smile when they get a book for the first time.”