But Gebregeorgis found that there were no children’s books in Amharics, the primary language of Ethiopia, and none representing the places and characters of Ethiopian lore2. When the library allocated $1,200 for the purchase of Ethiopian books, Gebregeorgis was unable to find any, so he wrote one: Silly Mammo was the first bilingual Amharic-English children’s book, and its publication led Ethiopia Reads in 1988. Using proceeds from book sales and grassroots3 book-a-thons4, the nonprofit organization financed his efforts to bring children,s libraries to Ethiopia.