“If you want to be successful in life, can you put a hand up for me?” asked Jonathan Beatty, better known as Chief Bookman, at the first of a series of assemblies he held at Holmes High School on Thursday for district sixth, seventh and eighth graders.
Students’ hands in the audience shot up.
“Now, you can look around at all the adults in this room,” he said. “I’m 100% certain they can all read. Reading is not just for the sake of getting a grade; reading is about educating yourself.”
Jonathan Beatty, founder and CEO of I LOVE BOOKS, has dedicated his life to advocating for improved literacy around the country. During the assembly, he described his journey from a high school student in Hazard, Kentucky, to a successful businessman, to the advocate he is today.
“This is how you go from being a Black boy growing up in a trailer park with six people,” he said after recounting some of his childhood frustrations, “to living in Oakland, California working for some of the best companies in the world.”
The assembly happened on Read Across America Day, a day proclaimed by the National Education Association (NEA), the country’s largest school union, in 1998 with the hope of broadly improving literacy. The day originally focused on the works of Dr. Seuss, but the NEA has since expanded its focus to include a greater diversity of different writers and genres. The day always falls in March, which is National Reading Month.
Also in attendance was Ms. Michelle Pray, who currently teaches careers, financial literacy and digital citizenship at Holmes. Beatty is, in fact, a former student of Pray’s from Perry County Central High School, where she taught English, or as Beatty puts it, “life,” between 1998 and 2001.
“I originally invited him to speak to my careers classes, but the more I found out about his foundation, the more I thought what a perfect person to talk to our entire student body,” Pray said in a press release from the district.
Upon finishing high school, Beatty eventually earned a master’s degree in finance from the University of Kentucky. He worked in several high-paying corporate roles, including one at Proctor & Gamble and one at McKesson Corporation, but chose to focus on literacy in 2021 when he founded I LOVE BOOKS. Even though the company is a for-profit enterprise, half of all its profits go to purchasing books and other merchandise that are then directly donated to schools, families and libraries.
“Most people will not leave your job that will pay them $200,000 a year,” Beatty said in reference to his final corporate gig before becoming an advocate.
“When I was living in California, I saw our homeless brothers and sisters, who did not have anywhere to live,” he said. “They had no food, and I felt like I needed to do something about it.”
These days, Beatty spends most of his days doing events like this one, managing his business and advocating for literacy on platforms like TikTok. He’s also in the process of writing his own children’s book.
He invited students to ask questions after he concluded his speech.
One student asked what his favorite book was.
“The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho,” he said. “It is about a boy. His name is Santiago, and he has a recurring dream. And he makes the decision to pursue that dream. On the way, he learns a lot about life. He learns about love. He learns about what it means to follow your heart.”
Another student asked what made him want to help people to read.
To answer the student’s questions, he recalled a conversation he had with a friend of his, who studied literacy at the doctoral level.
“So two-thirds of kids [in the U.S] do not have a book in their home,” he recounted. “And then she started telling me about what happens when kids don’t have books and when they’re not able to read. So if you’re not reading on grade level by fourth grade, the odds of you living in poverty are extremely high. If you cannot read, you cannot learn. If you cannot learn, you cannot earn. And if you can’t earn the legal way, then you have to get it in other ways.”
All of the students who asked questions left the assembly with some school supplies and merchandise.
“Whatever your circumstances, focus on education,” he said.
Beatty gave a total of three assemblies at the high school on Thursday.
To learn more about I LOVE BOOKS, visit the company’s website.
