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When I walked into my 8th grade ELA classroom two summers ago, my first thought was: “Where are all the books?” Nevermind the staplers, the bulletin board paper, or the dry erase markers. For my students to be successful this year, they needed books. Lots of them. Preferably of high interest and readability. Resources are tougher to come by in today’s educational world when compared to the past. And no resource is more important to my students’ success than access to high quality and engaging books. While I first viewed this situation as a problem, I quickly observed that there were opportunities here as well. I could create my own classroom library! Better yet, what if my students and I chose the books we wanted to read together during the school year? The purpose of this grant is to create a community of readers. We will do this by using the funds from your organization to build a classroom library together. These selections will be made collaboratively by the students and me. Literacy expert Stephen Krashen notes that research shows that classrooms with more books result in students who are better readers. Another respected reading researcher Richard Allington found that having ownership in the process of selecting books for independent reading only furthers to enhance the benefits of access to many texts Access and ownership– this is the foundation for the purpose of this grant.