>>> I was sitting in a barbershop getting a haircut
one day and one of my students came into the
shop and he was just sitting down for like
10 or 15 minutes just kind of staring out the window
with his like bored look, and I was sitting there
looking at him and thinking like, he should
be practicing his reading right now. And I wished I
had a children's book to give him, but I didn't.
>>> According to the United States Department
of Education more than 85% of America's black male
fourth grade students are not proficient in reading.
In 2013 former kindergarten teacher, comedian,
and author Alvin Irby founded an organization that brings
books and the joy of reading to barbershops
all across the U.S. 00:00:50.851,00:00:47.614 >>> Barbershops are cultural centers you know,
kids start going to the- boys start going to the
barbershops usually around age two or three, and they
come at least once a month or sometimes twice a month
depending. Whenever you have any type of
significant event in your life you go get a cut.
And so part of how Barbershop Books work is that we want
to try and leverage the relationship that barbers
have with young boys to hopefully get more boys to
really you know identify as readers and feel a lot
more positively about you know reading and about books.
>>> I thought that it was a smart idea. I read
chapter books mostly books that are very detailed and
are very long, so I don't read them too quick.
>>> Kids are so much on social media and on
tablets and stuff, and if they have something else
to keep them occupied you know instead of electronics,
it's a great thing.
>>> We do see kids reading more. We are actually push
them to do it too.
>>> When you look at the first few years of school
kindergarten first grade second grade,
they're almost no black male teachers right and then a
lot of young black boys are raised by single mothers,
so they may not necessarily have you know male- black
male reading models at home, but they go to
the barbershop.
>>> We’re like role models to the kids and also you
can say we like baby sitters to the you know,
parents come drop the kids off here you know,
it works hand-in-hand.
>>> I wrote a book. My first children's book is
called Gross Greg, and it's about a little kid
who loves to eat his boogers. You call them
boogers, but gross Greg, he calls them delicious
little sugars. And I mean the reason why I wrote
this book is because when I was teaching kindergarten
and first grade a lot of the books that have black
characters, they were very serious about slavery
segregation you know civil rights, which are important
topics, but these aren't the only books that children
should have access to that have characters that kind of
look like them, and that's part of the reason why our
selection, our curated list at Barbershop Books
include many humorous titles. And we believe
that if we can create the type of reading experiences
that help boys to identify the reader then they will
read for fun. Many children's early reading experiences
in school are almost exclusively skill-based.
It means every time they pick up a book someone's asking
them to take a test or answer questions and those
things don't necessarily cultivate a child intrinsic
motivation to read. So when they leave school,
they stop reading because for them reading is about a
test or reading is about you know a skill. And what we
want kids to understand about Barbershop books,
is that reading is actually something that you can do
anywhere at anytime.
>>> I think it's great. I think it's food for
thought you know, and they're like sponges.
They need it you know, it's like the best nutrients
for the brain.
>>> Everyone doesn't have access to these things,
and yeah if you get a- if you get a haircut and
you're able to get a haircut and get a few
minutes of reading in, I think that's a great thing.
>>> We have child friendly reading spaces in about 56
barbershops right now and just over 20 cities in
about thirteen states, and our goal is old is to
expand into 800 barbershops over the next
three years in 20 targets cities; Philadelphia,
Atlanta, Chicago, DC, Baltimore, Detroit.
We want at the end of the day for young black boys to
say three words. I'm reader.