ADDIS ABABA , Ethiopia ( CNN ) -- At age 19 , Yohannes Gebregeorgis borrowed a soft-cover romance novel entitled `` Love Kitten '' that changed his life forever . `` I just wanted to come back to Ethiopia and help children have a future , have hope , '' Yohannes Gebregeorgis says . Born in rural Ethiopia to an illiterate cattle merchant who insisted upon his son 's education , Gebregeorgis had seen a few books in school . But it was the experience of having a book of his own that sparked a lifelong commitment . Today , at 56 , Gebregeorgis is establishing libraries and literacy programs to connect Ethiopian children with books . `` Most Ethiopian children have only access to textbooks in the classroom , '' says Gebregeorgis . `` Books children read outside of school , those are the spices of education . '' It was n't until he became a children 's librarian in the United States that he realized what the children of his native home were missing . Forced to flee Ethiopia to the United States as a political refugee in 1981 , Gebregeorgis ultimately put himself through university , obtaining a graduate degree in library science . He relocated to the Bay Area , taking a post at the San Francisco Children 's Library in 1985 . There , he met `` The Little Engine That Could , '' `` Captain Ahab '' and `` Peter Pan . '' He realized the impact children 's books could make on a child 's sense of wonder and vision . `` Children could imagine everything from books -- connections to other cultures , to other people , to other children , and to the universe at large , '' recalls Gebregeorgis . `` It gives them hope . It gives them pleasure . It gives them everything that they can not otherwise get in regular textbooks . '' But Gebregeorgis found that , among the brilliantly illustrated books in 70 languages , there were none in Amharic , the primary language of Ethiopia , and none representing the places and characters of Ethiopian lore . When the library allocated $ 1,200 for the purchase of Ethiopian books the following year , Gebregeorgis was unable to find any , because of prohibitive publishing , purchasing and importing costs in his home country . So he wrote one . `` Silly Mammo '' was the first bilingual Amharic-English children 's book , and it led Gebregeorgis to establish Ethiopia Reads in 1988 . Using proceeds from book sales and grassroots book-a-thons , the nonprofit financed his efforts to bring children 's libraries to Ethiopia . In 2002 , Gebregeorgis left his job and his home and returned to Ethiopia with 15,000 books donated by the San Francisco Children 's Library . With them , he opened the Shola Children 's Library on the first floor of his Addis Ababa home . Watch Gebregeorgis explain how his home became more than just a children 's library » . Young readers quickly overwhelmed the three-room home , requiring the addition of two large tents to provide shade for hundreds at a time . `` I just wanted to come back to Ethiopia and help children have a future , have hope , '' says Gebregeorgis . Watch how Gebregeorgis is connecting children with storybooks in Ethiopia » . Today , Ethiopia Reads is doing just that . In addition to the original library , the organization established the Awassa Reading Center and Ethiopia 's first Donkey Mobile Library . Inspired by a similar concept he 'd seen in Zimbabwe , Gebregeorgis customized a donkey-pulled trailer-cart that now makes weekly visits to rural villages around Awassa . Watch Gebregeorgis and a young reader talk about the four-legged library » . Reading storybooks to children who have no access to television or computers , Gebregeorgis believes that literacy and education will emancipate his impoverished land , gripped by HIV/AIDS . Ethiopia Reads recently held its fifth annual Ethiopia Children 's Book Week . In 2007 , the group offered nearly 94,000 children access to its libraries in Addis Ababa , Awassa and on shady clearings along the Ethiopian countryside . `` With literate children there is no limit as to how much we can do . ''
Yohannes Gebregeorgis fled Ethiopia for U.S. as political refugee in 1981 . As librarian , he found there were no children 's books in Ethiopia 's main language . After writing one himself , he set up the nonprofit Ethiopia Reads and moved home .