Reading Changed My Life - Townsend Press

Julia Burneywere children hiding in the bedrooms, scared todeath,” Julia says. “I’d get backup and go intothose bedrooms and sit with the children, huggingthem, promising them that things would be better,telling them they didn’t have to live like this forever.Every time I comforted a child like that, it waslike comforting a piece of myself.”And when Julia went into those homes, shenoticed something that many other officers mighthave missed: If there were any books in the house atall, they were on top of the refrigerator.The sight tore at her heart. Memories wouldflood back to her when she saw those books, kepthigh out of reach. She knew what the children inthose homes were being denied: not only books,but the hopes and dreams that books could inspire.“I knew from the time I was a little girl thatreading was power,” she says. “My parents werecrippled by their inability to read well. You cannotthrive in this society without reading well. I arrest69