While working as a teacher in Lake Park-Audubon Elementary school, Kathrina O’Connell created the Literacy Academy, a program aimed at keeping rural Minnesota middle school students engaged in reading over the summer.
It was a successful venture, but students who loved to read would age out of the program.
In a recent What We’re Reading interview, O’Connell, an Associate Professor of Education at Concordia College, noted that offering a reading program specifically to young adults was a motivation behind the creation of Reaching Rural Readers, a virtual book club for high school students who live in rural Minnesota.
Participating students get books mailed to them at no charge and can join in book discussions and author talks online, facilitated by Bemidji State University education students.
Danielle Sullivan, Associate Professor of English at Bemidji State University and co-creator of Reaching Rural Readers, noted how they wanted Bemidji State University students to be involved from early on.
“So initially, we were thinking of this as this book club, but then this question came up of what if some of our students could participate? And this has grown from just giving them an opportunity to get some experience leading discussions to an active inquiry that we're undertaking through our research.”
The Bemidji State University students additionally get to “develop their own questions and their own ideas for how to engage the readers and help them get to know each other.”
“They have found this really beneficial,” said Sullivan.
O’Connell and Sullivan are very intentional about the booklist and usually include one with a rural perspective, one with an indigenous perspective, and then a third book they call a “window book,” one that offers a broader perspective to another world or another place.
Summer 2026 books include: Apple in the Middle, by Dawn Quigley; Tuck Everlasting: The Graphic Novel, adapted and illustrated by K. Woodman-Maynard; and Gather, by Kenneth Cadow.
Now in its third year, Reaching Rural Readers has expanded to include students in North Dakota and, while O’Connell is serving as a Fulbright Roving Scholar in Norway this year, she saw an opportunity to include students there as well.
She reached out to the Norwegian National Centre for English and Foreign Languages in Education, and they agreed to mail the books to students in Norway.
O’Connell said, “It's just very exciting for us. We have this rural reach in the United States, and now we have this rural reach in Norway. So, the possibilities are endless for this program, and we're just really excited for this summer.”
Registration for summer 2026 is full, but students can join a waitlist. More information about Reaching Rural Readers can be found on their website.
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What We're Reading is made possible in part by the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota.
