FRESNO, Calif. – As the sleepy morning crowd shuffles up to the glass counter at the Krispy Kreme shop, a lilting voice draws them away from the mouthwatering display of doughnuts.

Sitting at one of the plastic tables, a box of deep-fried goodies and a hot pot of coffee at hand, Sandy Lindley reads aloud from “To Kill a Mockingbird,” helping to kick off a month’s worth of programs meant to take the classic novel where the readers are – retirement homes, downtown bars, museums and yes, even doughnut shops.

“It’s awesome they’re doing this, because libraries have such a cold feel about them,” says Kelly Rothchild, 26, who was in the store Monday to get breakfast for her co-workers. “This brings it out to people.”

The National Endowment for the Arts funded the effort after a recent survey showed a “huge crisis” in reading among Americans.

In an attempt to rekindle the interest in books, the NEA gave grants of up to $40,000 to three public libraries, including Fresno’s, and seven books centers from Enterprise, Ore., to Hunstville, Ala.

As part of a pilot program, the towns had to choose from four books – Harper Lee’s novel “To Kill A Mockingbrd”, Ray Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451,” F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby” and Zora Neale Hurston’s “Their Eyes Were Watching God” – and come up with ways to connect their communities to the classics.

This town at the center of California’s farm belt is a particularly challenging place to jump-start the fight against slumping readership.

Fresno has nearly half a million residents and a renowned creative writing program at the state university campus, but like much of the surrounding rural landscape, it relies largely on the low-wage farming jobs, and loses many of its highly educated residents to opportunities elsewhere.

“We wanted to make sure the program could work as broadly as possible, so we wanted to test it in more challenging markets,” said Gioia, who hopes to see the program expand to 100 cities nationwide by next fall.

To show Fresnans – who might not otherwise be inclined to check out their local library – “To Kill a Mockingbird” speaks to them, Fresno librarians asked lawyers, musicians, teachers and others to bring to life the messages in the classic 1960 Pulitzer Prize winning book.