4-year-old who’s read 1,000 books tours Library of Congress

GAINESVILLE, Ga. (AP) - A 4-year-old Georgia girl’s love of books has taken her all the way to the Library of Congress.

Daliyah Marie Arana got to serve as “Librarian for the Day” at the Washington institution Wednesday.

The Gainesville Academy preschooler, who has been reading since she was about 2 years old, recently completed reading 1,000 books through the Georgia 1,000 Books B4 Kindergarten Program, The Times of Gainesville reported (https://bit.ly/2jJ84Yd). The program challenges children to read 1,000 books before their first day of kindergarten.

Daliyah’s parents had written to Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden about the achievement, and Hayden found it inspiring, Library of Congress spokeswoman Gayle Osterberg said.

Hayden plans to establish a Librarian for the Day program on a regular basis for students 16 and younger, Osterberg said. She said Hayden’s goals are to cultivate young scholars and make the library and its resources more accessible to Americans of all ages.

Haleema Arana said she and her husband, Miguel Arana, started reading to their daughter “right when she was born.”

“And I have two other small children, too,” Haleema Arana told the newspaper. “So she’d heard us reading stories to them, as well. We would literally read every day, about 15 to 20 minutes a day. By the time she was 18, 19 months, we realized she could recognize a lot of the words. And we kind of took it from there.”