KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The team at Mid-Continent Public Library is encouraging young kids to love reading through the national program 1,000 Books Before Kindergarten.

The program helps establishes reading as a habit for kids up to five years old, teaching fundamental skills like letters and numbers, giving kids a head start to kindergarten.

“It can be any book and it can be very low stress,” assistant branch manager, Amanda Tufano said. “If your kid likes to read the same book five times, you have read it to your child five times.”

Tufano’s son Arthur is one of the local kids to reach the 1,000-book milestone at just 2.5 years old. He has a big imagination and reaches for a new book every chance he gets.

With his parent’s help, he’s inspiring other kids to also reach the reading milestone.

“And if we can help even one kid be less afraid of reading or be more excited about it instead of thinking it’s boring, then we’ve done what we came here to do,” Tufano said.