Bellmore Herald Life Person of the Year: Amy Zaslansky

What’s in a book? An education. The trouble that too many children in low-income communities face is that they have little to no access to quality texts. 

One Bellmore resident, Amy Zaslansky, 40, had a simple idea: gather gently used books from families in affluent neighborhoods and distribute them among children in need. She began the project three years ago, and has since collected some 100,000 books and given them away in communities across Long Island through the nonprofit organization that she founded, the Book Fairies.

It clearly has become more than a labor of love. Zaslansky is a woman on a mission. That’s why we are proud to name her the Herald Life’s 2014 Person of the Year.

Love for literacy 

“I don’t have to bring money?”

Alexandra Azzurro said she lost count of how many times that question was asked by the children at Brookhaven Elementary School, in Bellport, on Dec. 3 and 4. Azzurro is a new remedial reading teacher at the school, which houses pre-kindergarten through third-grade classes. Thirty-five percent of students there qualify for free or reduced-price lunches, an indication of economic need in the community. 

At the December book fair, each child was allowed to select two of the 2,000 books delivered to the school by the woman they call the “book fairy.” “It’s all they talked about,” Azzurro said. “Some of the kids couldn’t believe they were able to get a free book that had all the stickers in the book … Usually, if it’s a free book, all the good stuff is missing or used. When my students came to class, all they wanted to do was read their new books.” 

The Book Fairies charity is Zaslansky’s “third life,” she said. After working as an occupational therapist and operating her own lawn sign business, she was looking for meaningful volunteer work to do while raising her three children. Her parents, she said, raised her to believe that one person can make a difference in the world.