Adult literacy skills have been a widespread issue in North America for years now, and there is a large gap in literacy skills between rural and urban students. An investigation by Statistics Canada shows that this isn’t because of resources or different schools, but due to community culture. It is important to encouraging reading in children and teens.

To tackle this problem… Rural Change Maker Alexis Kuper’s aims to help bridge the gap with the Little Free Libraries project. Little Free Libraries are small, outdoor book exchange stations that can be used anonymously and freely by the community. By building a station in each of Mapleton’s three towns, community members will be able to share books with their neighbors, which increases readership in Mapleton and brings Mapletonites together during a time of isolation!