My love of books and my own literacy came from Clara Moore Clark, my maternal grandmother, who raised me and was also my eighth-grade teacher at Shelbyville Junior High School in Shelbyville, Tennessee.

When I entered my grandmother’s life in 1944, she had already raised six children on a teacher’s salary–a salary that was only half what the other teachers made, because she had "only" a two-year degree.

The old house we lived in was a large, crumbling, antebellum structure on the edge of town. Perhaps the greatest difficulty in growing up there was that it was so far from town, school, and church. When my brother and I were little boys, we walked home with our grandmother at the end of the school day.

Occasionally people would stop and give us a ride. But, for the most part, we walked everywhere we went. That made me painfully aware of our poverty. Other people rode. We walked. I learned a very basic lesson from walking everywhere as a child: You can’t quit 'till you get where you’re going. It was a lesson that has served me well throughout my life.

My grandmother could have retired before the 1957-58 school year, but she chose to teach another year so that I could be in her room in the eighth grade. Although I did not realize it at the time, what I learned from her that year established the pattern for the rest of my life. One of my shining memories of that year was her daily reading.

Every day, after lunch, we were required to put our heads down on our desks (at the time I thought that was so that we could rest) and she read to us in serial fashion from a Jesse Stuart book. I couldn’t wait for the next day’s installment. Would Jesse whip Guy Hawkins? Would he freeze to death on that mountain? Would his students win the academic competition with a much larger school?

I found two role models that year, and I set myself on a course to become a teacher. Later, I realized that my interest in the history and literature of Appalachia began with my grandmother’s stories of her life and her teaching experiences. I regret that she did not live long enough to see me assume the leadership of the Jesse Stuart Foundation.

Here is my message on literacy to each adult who reads this essay: There is a child who loves you as much as I loved my grandmother.

That child needs your attention more than he/she needs money for a pizza or a movie rental.

Please read to them and with them. That child who "thinks you hung the moon" will never forget the book and the time you spent with him/her.

I know that’s true because every week someone calls or writes and says, "I’m looking for a book I read when I was a child" or " I want to give my grandchild a book I read many years ago. . . ."

Help a young person love reading and you will light fires of literacy that will burn forever.

James M. Gifford, Ph.D.
CEO & Senior Editor
Jesse Stuart Foundation