Program Overview and History

Project Overview
All America Reads is a collaborative project designed to encourage young adults (grades 8-12) to read and provide them with the skills and tools to do so. The project engages competent middle and high school readers as well as struggling and reluctant readers by providing them with the necessary strategies for comprehending the text. 

The current text is Wish You Well by David Baldacci. The next text will be The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver.

General reading strategies, developed for the classroom based upon the educational concepts designed by Dr. Kylene Beers at the University of Houston, have been reconfigured to meet the needs of young adults reading Wish You Well and The Bean Trees. Those strategies and lesson plans are now available on this Web site.

"Wish You Well by David Baldacci is a tale laced with touching passages evoking the charms of rural Virginia, imbued with graceful humor, and enriched by unforgettable characters. The novel is a heart-wrenching yet triumphant story about family and adversity from times past that resounds forcefully today." --Warner Books

"[The Bean Trees is] awarmhearted and highly entertaining first novel in which a poor but plucky Kentucky girl . . . arrives at surprising new meanings for love, friendship, and family."--Kirkus Reviews

Project History
Following the successful implementation of "All Virginia Reads Sophie's Choice by William Styron" in 2000 throughout the Commonwealth of Virginia, All Virginia Reads co-founder Deborah Hocutt, then executive director of the Virginia Center for the Book at the Library of Virginia, and All Virginia Reads supporter Phyllis Ayers, then Secondary English Supervisor for the Virginia Department of Education, collaborated on a broader literacy project that would engage secondary students in deep reading of a book that explores the development of values among coming-of-age adolescent characters. The result is All America Reads.

The remainder of the history of All America Reads has yet to be completed. Participants like you will grow the project from its current form to its ultimate conclusion: when, where, and how the project concludes is up to you!