80% of children who live in poverty are not proficient in reading at the end of the third grade. The consequences of this are dire. Children who are not proficient in reading at this critical juncture (when they transition from 'learning to read' to 'reading to learn') are more likely to drop out of high school and experience poverty for the remainder of their lifetime.Book Joy seeks to break this cycle for children living in central Appalachia by:*providing quarterly, expertly curated literacy boxes that address each individual child's interests and learning needs. These boxes are designed from an edutainment perspective, putting as much focus on eliciting joy as we do in choosing the best aligned reading material. We want every design element - from the moment the children lay eyes on the box to the emptying of every item - to elicit joy. *doing so from their first day in Kindergarten through their last day in the third grade. *monitoring their literacy progress throughout these formative years and providing intervention as needed to make certain they reach their full potential as readers.