Cast the actor James Earl Jones; a three-time Emmy Award winner and Golden Globe winner, a great story and the Hallmark Channel and you know what you have? What you get is a great movie, in The Reading Room.

William Campbell (James Earl Jones) is a recent widower, whose late wife knew just what he needed. She asked him to open a reading room in an inner city neighborhood. Campbell opens the reading room to the joy of a small group of people. The first person to stumble into the reading room is a delightful little girl that wants to read better. Later, she brings her little brother, that she has to baby-sits for. A teacher (Joanna Cassidy) that checked out and uses the reading room ask Mr. Campbell to help a little boy with learning disabilities. Another regular of the reading room is a highschool boy that wants to go to college and is studying for his SATs. There are the regular high school girls that come in daily for the magazines.

Add robberies and gangs that keep trying to harass Mr. Campbell’s Reading Room. Javier (Douglas Spain) is a young man who robs the reading room and steals a computer. Mr Campbell gives him a job as a bodyguard for the reading room. The local minister played sinisterly by Georg Stanford Brown seems to walk a fine line of honesty and running the neighborhood, tries to force the closing of the reading room.

As trouble brews, sinister looking people watch the reading room. Mr. Campbell makes a different in the lives of those he touches as much as they touch his heart.

The movie is great, James Earl Jones plays a character we all should be. You should catch The Reading Room on the Hallmark Channel on of the many Specialty Channels.

Hallmark Channel (offsite link)