America’s burgeoning fleet of book bikes

The United States is in a literacy crisis. In 2023, a survey conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics found that 28% of American citizens ages 16–65 read below the equivalent of a third-grade level. Another study, based on the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ latest American Time Use Survey, indicated that 16% of adults read for pleasure on a given day in 2023, down from a high of 28% in 2004. Meanwhile, library funding is increasingly threatened, screen time is adversely affecting students’ reading abilities, and swaths of the country have become bookstore deserts. But one group of dedicated citizens hoping to counteract the trend is peddling into local parks on book bikes.