Growing Communities

Unite for Literacy is leading the Book Garden movement to make shared reading a normal part of everyday life. We help project partners build Community Book Gardens: neighborhood book systems that grow home libraries and nurture shared reading routines for families with young children.  

In 2014, Unite for Literacy created the first map of Book Deserts in the United States. Our goal was simple: make the problem of book scarcity visible. Over the past decade, we expanded our understanding and developed the Growing Readers Optimal Zone (GROZ). The GROZ estimate maps the percent of households where books in the home and shared reading frequency are strong enough to reinforce a daily or almost daily reading norm.  

We are now developing the Book Garden Lab, where we share field-tested stories, tools, and examples so any community can learn what works and replicate it.