Books have great power. Between their pages, readers can be transported to anywhere imaginable and become just about anyone … or anything. Unfortunately, many children all over the world don’t have access to books! For several years now, Maria Keller, a 16-year-old girl from Minneapolis, Minnesota, has been changing that fact.
When she was 8 years old, Maria already loved reading. She also noticed that some of her classmates didn’t read as much as she did. When she asked her mother why that could be, her mother said that they might not be able to afford books. Maria had never thought of this. She could not believe that some children might not have bedtime stories read to them. She became determined to change this. With her mother’s help, Maria created Read Indeed, a non-profit organization committed to collecting and distributing books to children in need.
During the early stages of Read Indeed, Maria set the goal to collect and distribute 1 million books by the time she was 18. It didn’t take long to reach that goal! She reached her goal at age 13! Today, at age 16, she has collected over 2.8 million books and has shipped them to many states and countries around the world.
She says, “I cannot live without books. As I continue my mission, I have learned that the number of kids who have no books is in the hundreds of millions, so I just can’t leave off, even after reaching my original goal of 1 million books distributed.”
She recently set a new goal: to distribute donations to kids in need in every state in the United States, and every country in the world. She keeps track of her progress on a large map at the warehouse where they store and sort books. And now, as Maria prepares to attend college, her younger brother Ryan Keller is taking over Read Indeed.
1. What had young Maria never thought of? (no more than 10 words)2. What is the main idea of Para.2? (no more than 10 words)
3. What does the underlined phrase in Para.4 probably mean? (1 word)
4. Why will Ryan Keller be in charge of Reed Indeed? (no more than 5 words)
5. What can you learn from Maria’s story? Please explain. (no more than 20 words)
