GWINN There were books on shelves and all over the table and ankle deep on the floor and everywhere in the little house except a small patch of carpet in the dining room on which Melissa Derby stood.
“This is our living area, and I try to keep it to where the books are not in here,” the 40-year-old explained. “But it is overflowed. I’m trying to get bookshelves, but bookshelves are really hard to come by, especially when you’re looking for free.”
Last summer, consumed by a fear that too many people are reading too few books, she founded the Read UP Bookmobile, delivering books for free to anyone who asked, no matter how far they lived from her home on the former K.I. Sawyer Air Force Base in the northern U.P.; no matter how busy she already was homeschooling her three kids while her husband, Stephen, works 12-hour shifts as a local truck driver. And no matter how little money they can spare for this effort.