A Librarian's War

Abstract

A Librarian’s War is a biography of Ray Trautman, whose childhood in a rural town with no library and few books ignited a lifelong passion to ensure no one would struggle as he did to access reading materials. He nurtured his love of books as a bookseller, librarian, literacy educator, Army officer, and professor. During World War II, he distributed hundreds of millions of books and magazines to troops despite book bans and resistant generals. After the war, he helped improve rural library access, built recreational libraries in prisons, worked to improve literacy for adults, and campaigned for more and better titles for the visually impaired. Through his efforts, the book-reading population skyrocketed and generations of Americans discovered the joy of reading.