Several months ago, I finished writing my latest book “Your Future Begins Today.” I knew I was happy with it, but I had no idea of the way it would bless others.

Soon after I finished writing it, I began to think about who I wanted to ask to write the Preface for it. The name of my long-time friend County Judge Jim Baker kept coming to my mind, so I decided to ask him if he would do the honor. He graciously agreed and had it finished several weeks later. When I went by his office to pick it up, he said, “I want the first 30 copies.” Even then I did not give it much thought, but later he said, “I want 25 more.” Then, a few weeks later, he said, “I want 25 more.” At that point, I began to realize that we might have something special here. He was buying books, and paying for them personally, and giving them to family and friends.

His “Preface” is outstanding, and an idea began to form in my mind as it was written from a 1950s perspective. I graduated from high school in 1956. This was a time when we did not have to lock our doors at night, take the keys out of the car’s ignition, and we were safe to walk the streets alone, even at night in our large cities. I might add this is a time that 100 million Americans long for today, because they were around and know exactly what I am talking about. This was also a time when we did not have the deep division that exists in the political arena. Back in our day, it did not matter whether you were a Democrat or a Republican, after the election everyone worked together for the good of our country.

The idea I mentioned earlier was fleshed out when one day Jim Baker said, “This book can change the culture.” At this point I put two and two together. We had been working on our all-volunteer bookcase project titled, “Bookcase for Every Child” and giving a bookcase and a starter set of books to pre-school children being reared in low-income families. We have done this for the past 16 years, having given more than 850 bookcases locally and more than 2,500 nationwide, as we are now in five other states.

This really makes sense when you know that ProLiteracy has reported that 75 percent of our nation’s incarcerated individuals do not have a high school diploma. Yes, the root cause for a large part of the discord in our nation today is by illiteracy.

An idea began to jell in my mind. Now that I am past 80 years of age, and knowing I would not be around forever, I asked our local Kiwanis Club to take over our “Bookcase for Every Child” project. The club voted to do this, and a terrific man by the name of Richard Plotkin volunteered to be the chairman. As a result, our project is in good hands and will be around for many years to come. This takes care of our local level, but I want to see the project spread across our nation. There are more than 5,000 Kiwanis Clubs in North America, and most of them are in the United States.

Please understand this is a long-range plan. We did not get here overnight, and our problems won’t be solved overnight. I am talking about in the coming 10, 20 or 30 years. I have a goal to have 1,000 bookcase projects started in the coming years. We can fund the bookcase projects by selling my book, and the Kiwanis Clubs are getting the lion’s share of the profits to use as start-up money. In time, I believe we can agree that my new book will truly become “America’s Book.” This is simply meant to be a rallying cry that better days are coming.

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(Editor’s Note: For a personally signed copy of my new book ‘Your Future Begins Today’ send $20, which includes postage and handling, to Jim Davidson, 2 Bentley Drive, Conway, AR 72034.)