The Metro: Birdie’s Bookmobile is turning the page on Michigan’s literacy crisis
Founder and Executive Director Alyce Hartman joined the show to share her passion for promoting youth literacy in Detroit, and her latest efforts to get a book in every kid’s hands in the city.
Books donated to Birdie's Bookmobile are shared with children and families via school visits, free book fairs and community events.
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Education plays an important role in the way in which society operates.The recent trends of literacy have noticeably started to decline. Rapid changes in our country, like the dismantling of the Department of Education and highlighting the struggle of Detroit students with English language arts proficiency.
Important skills such as sifting through information, understanding context and discerning fact from fiction hinge on literacy skills. Standardized test results from last school year show 16% of students in Detroit public schools tested proficient in English language arts — nearing an 1.5% increase from the previous school year. But statewide numbers are much higher, with almost 40% proficiency.
Today on The Metro — during National Reading Month — Alyce Hartman, founder and executive director of Birdie’s Bookmobile, shares how she is continuing to work passionately to get a book in every kid’s hands in the city.
Hartman is also a K-4 STEM teacher at Detroit Prep and the Mack Kids Director at Mack Avenue Community Church. She travels the city putting books in little hands and filling the book desert gaps. The program also has a huge outreach lending to Detroit Public Schools, and shipping book packages to Ghana, Togo, Iceland and California, demonstrating its global reach.
Use the media player above to hear the full conversation.
More stories from The Metro on Tuesday, March 25, 2025.
Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on-demand.
