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“So many of our kids have access to books at the library, but rarely do they have a book of their own.  In many homes, a book would represent a real luxury item.” – Kevin Ahern, President, Syracuse Teacher’s Association

With 85 percent of students in the school district eligible for free or reduced lunch, it’s no surprise that Kevin Ahern, President of the Syracuse Teachers Association, was thrilled when presented the opportunity to provide 40,000 free books to his community. All he had to do was sign up 2,000 local teachers and program leaders with First Book.

Luckily, Kevin had plenty of help. Throughout the month of October, the Syracuse Teachers Association, along with local educators, reached out to schools, community centers and the United Way of Central New York to spread the word about First Book – and the chance to receive free books.

Jennifer Horn, a First Grade teacher at Webster Elementary in Syracuse, led the charge to encourage everyone at her school to sign up. “I was knocking on people’s doors, handing them flyers, saying ‘I don’t care if you’re not a teacher, you work with our kids! These are free books, just sign up!’”

The Syracuse Teacher’s Association successfully signed up 2,000 educators. And when 40,000 books arrived, the community rallied together to unpack, sort and distribute. At one point, the show of support was so impressive that there were more volunteers than work to do.

At 8:30 a.m., those who signed up, along with community members and parents streamed through the doors of the civic center. By 11:00 a.m. only one title was left.

“I wish we had a video of the piles of books. They just dwindled and vanished. Kids were picking out books and teachers were getting collections for their classrooms. It was impressive,” said Jennifer.

Jennifer’s excitement and motivation to help stemmed from her students and their families’ need for books. At Webster Elementary, one out of six students does not speak English. In total, 68 languages are spoken through the school, adding an extra challenge to teachers and students alike. In Jennifer’s 14 years of teaching, books have bridged the gap for students like hers.

“The kids love books even if they aren’t able to read the words. They like the pictures, they love tracking words and get really excited when they learn a few words and can recognize them in print!” she shared.

Jennifer allowed her students to choose their favorite book to take home and used some of the books to teach lessons on sharing and honesty.

“One little girl kept giving her book back to me. I said ‘no you can take it home, it’s yours.’ She pointed to her backpack and I told her ‘Yes! You can put it in your backpack and take it home!’”

The post 40,000 Books for Kids In Syracuse appeared first on First Book Blog.

Today’s guest blog post is from Dr. Mandy Stewart, an assistant professor of bilingual education at Texas Woman’s University. Follow her on Twitter at @DrMandyStewart.

How many books have you read in your lifetime?  How many picture books did an adult read aloud to you while growing up?

Most of us can’t even begin to count the innumerable books we have been exposed to since birth.   Each book — its story, its illustrations, its author, and its language — sends strong messages to children. 

But what messages do children receive?  Are they learning every day at school that their language, the one they speak to those they love most, is not worthy of being in books?  Are they learning that people like them don’t belong in printed stories? Unfortunately, those are the messages some children receive on a daily basis at school.

Culturally and linguistically diverse books are not as accessible in our public libraries and bookstores as more mainstream books.  It takes countless hours (and countless dollars) to find books in other languages and get them in the classroom.  Every year I look for books in Spanish that are at various reading levels, that are engaging and that mirror student’s experiences.  And it is exponentially more costly to find the same books in other languages from even more cultural perspectives.

The good news is this does not have to be the case. Today there are many children’s, adolescent, and young adult authors writing from diverse cultural and linguistic perspectives and many publishers bringing these stories to life.  We now have quality age-appropriate literature available in many languages.

Through their Stories for All Project, First Book is a pioneer in ensuring that all children  have access to culturally and linguistically diverse books. They have an excellent collection of literature that represents diverse families. They also have many easy readers, picture books, and chapter books available in Spanish and other languages.  I am grateful that I am able to purchase many of these at a very low price for my son’s Spanish/English bilingual 1^st grade class.

We must keep demanding quality literature in more languages, written and illustrated by more diverse people.  Surely we want all children to say: I am learning to read in my own language.  My language and culture are important enough to be represented in the books in my classroom.  My life story is worthy of being written.  My family, my language, my culture, and my life experiences are valuable. I am important.

We cannot stop until that is a reality for EVERY child and youth in our schools, in our neighborhoods, and in our society.

Mary Amanda (Mandy) Stewart, Ph. D. is an Assistant Professor of Bilingual Education at Texas Woman’s University.  Her son is in Mrs. Schirico’s 1^st grade bilingual class at Elkins Elementary in the Eagle Mountain-Saginaw Independent School District in Fort Worth, TX.  His class has received about 100 books from First Book in English and Spanish to read at school with each other and at home with their parents.

The post Books in Every Language for Every Child appeared first on First Book Blog.

Four years ago this week, a magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck the Caribbean nation of Haiti. The tragedy left 1.5 million citizens displaced from their homes, hundreds of thousands dead and devastated an already depressed economy.

Today, Haiti remains the poorest country in the Americas. And while much has been done to aid Haiti’s recovery, a staggering eighty percent of the population lives below the poverty line.

Poverty keeps millions of children from accessing the world of knowledge that books provide. First Book is committed to changing that, by bringing badly-needed books and educational materials to children in countries like Haiti. Last month we had the opportunity to deliver books to kids in Haiti’s capital city of Port au Prince, a donation made possible through First Book’s longstanding partnership with Jet Blue.

At Ecole Herve Romain, a local school in the Port au Prince “red-zone” of Bel-Air known for high crime and extreme poverty, 250 students previously had to share 50 books between them. Now they have a library of 500 new titles to read and explore.

In addition to providing books, First Book staff met with representatives from USAID and other global and national NGOs in hopes of creating partnerships that lead to more educational resources for Haiti’s kids in need.

“We believe that one book can change the world,” said Kyle Zimmer, president and CEO of First Book. “But we also know that building relationships with partners in Haiti and around the globe will be critical in to achieving our goal of providing books and educational resources to 10 million children in need worldwide by 2016. We want to understand local needs and connect the dots so that kids in need all over the world can read, learn and rise out of poverty.”

The post In a Haitian School, 50 Books for 250 Students appeared first on First Book Blog.

One afternoon last week, a big box of books arrived in Miss Vicky’s classroom. After she explained to her students, who devote each Wednesday to studying science, technology, engineering and math (STEM), that the books were about “why things work and how they work”, the girls “shot up from their seats and ran over to the books.”

“Some of the younger girls didn’t understand all the words, but they kept reading,” she said. “Working hard to figure out what the book was about.”

Miss Vicky — known to the world outside her classroom as Vicky Hernandez — teaches girls, ages 6 to 18, at Girls Inc. of Metropolitan Dallas, and she strives to help them be strong, smart and bold.

Her students come from the surrounding West Dallas neighborhoods, an area known for high crime and struggling schools. Their parents have chosen to pay $5 every month so the girls can participate in tutoring and educational programming and receive a full, healthy meal each night after school at Girls Inc.

Recently, Miss Vicky received a grant from First Book, made possible by our generous corporate partner, Lockheed Martin. “We had some books,” she said, “but not STEM [science, technology, engineering and math] books.”

Despite the lack of resources, STEM is central to the curriculum at Girls Inc. They believe studying STEM improves their students’ chances for successful college and career placement.

And they’re right. By 2018, there will be over 8 million STEM jobs in the United States, but only 5 million people qualified to fill them. Women in STEM careers also make more, with median annual earnings in selected STEM occupations nearly doubling that of women workers overall.

“STEM books are so valuable, because they teach specific concepts while helping the girls develop their reading skills,” Miss Vicky said. “It’s not just reading to read, it’s reading to grow a greater knowledge base.”

First Book is grateful to our friends at Lockheed Martin for making it possible for us to provide books about science, technology, engineering and math to students like Miss Vicky’s across the country.

The post How STEM Books Make a Difference to Girls in One Dallas Afterschool Program appeared first on First Book Blog.

Today is National Family Literacy Day, created by our friends at the National Center for Families Learning (NCFL) to celebrate families who are improving their lives through continued learning.

This issue is an important one for the classrooms and community programs that First Book serves. We recently asked hundreds of educators who recently joined the First Book network about the biggest challenges they face, and parent engagement was at the top of the list.

If you work with kids in need — at a school, community program or local nonprofit — you can sign up with First Book to get new books. And, in honor of National Family Literacy Day, here’s a few ideas for how you can use First Book to encourage reading at home:

• Go beyond books. First Book carries over 5,000 great titles on the First Book Marketplace, our online store. You can pair these books with activities to make reading a family activity. For example, the National PTA’s Family Reading Experience, Powered by Kindle, is a set of free activities — in English and Spanish — that engage the entire family and focus on improving the reading skills of children between kindergarten and fifth grade. 
• Use books as incentives. The educators we work with use a lot of methods to involved parents in their children’s education, from parent-teacher conferences to family reading nights to reading breakfasts. First Book can help you get free books to give away at these events to help families build home libraries.
• Help parents with tips. Not every parent feels able to help their child become a stronger reader, but there are tools and resources out there that can help. Our friends at Reading Rockets have some amazing free tips (in 10+ languages) for parents, grandparents and other caring adults about how they can read with the children in their lives. First Book’s Mind In the Making section also includes tip sheets for how to read those books with kids.
• Start a family literacy program. Designate a corner of your school library or community center as a family reading space. When kids bring a caring adult in to read with them, invite them to take a book home to keep, or invite parents into your school or program to read their favorite book with your students.

The post Four Ways to Engage Parents and Families in Reading Time appeared first on First Book Blog.

Today’s blog post is by Brenda Berg, who loaded her family into an RV and spent over half a year traveling across the country. They called their adventure the Gump Trip, and along the way they distributed 6,000 brand-new books to kids in need at local schools and community programs in the First Book network.

Have you ever sat in the carpool lane and dreamed about your next vacation? Last year, I decided to make it a reality. The plan – before my daughter entered middle school– was to go from music lessons and organized sports to something real.

Brenda Berg and her children at Glacier National Park

After months of getting things in order, my kids and I set off on an adventure of a lifetime, traveling to 49 states and two Canadian provinces. (We were also joined by an exchange student from Sweden and my husband joined us about once a month.) In seven-and-a-half months, we traveled over 35,000 miles.

Instead of guitar lessons, we visited the Fender guitar factory and attended live concerts. Instead of indoor climbing classes, we climbed in Alaska and hiked in dozens of national parks. Instead of textbooks, we visited dozens of historic and interesting sites. We definitely got real!

Our commitment to ‘return to real’ extended beyond national parks and factory tours. We were also committed to education and service. In order to reach hundreds of children across the country in a real way, we partnered with First Book to give new, high-quality books to kids in need.

The Berg family and First Book volunteers with local children in New Orleans

Of the 200 stops we made along the way, the six First Book events – where we worked with local First Book volunteers gave away new books to kids in need – were our favorite experiences, ones that will change our lives forever. We gave away over 6,000 books and met with hundreds of children to talk about traveling in our amazing country. The smiles from those children were better than the sunrise over the Grand Canyon (and that’s a sight that is hard to beat!).

Most of us look for ways to give back in our communities, but I encourage people to consider giving back as they travel. There are isolated and other under-supported communities all over America that will benefit and you will gain a whole different perspective on America at the same time. And, just like your efforts at home, you will get back far more than you will give.

Inspired? Visit First Book on the web to find out how you can volunteer or raise funds to help kids in need get the brand-new books that will change their lives.

The post Across America in an RV With First Book appeared first on First Book Blog.

I have been signed up with First Book for several years. I teach kindergarten and first grade at Dayton Public Schools in the poverty-stricken inner city of Dayton, Ohio. I get plenty of emails from First Book, but have never received one book. Most books seem to be located in a warehouse in a large metropolitan area. You would have to drive a truck through states to get there.

– Mary Reed
Dayton Public Schools

Hi Mary,

It sounds like you signed up with First Book to get new books for your students, but we haven’t been able to help you make that happen yet. Let’s fix that.

There are actually two different ways you can get books from First Book.

The First Book Marketplace: Over 5,000 popular and award-winning titles, from board books to college prep, available exclusively to educators serving kids in need. This channel is great for teachers like you, who often need specific titles for their students.

The First Book National Book Bank: The nation’s only clearinghouse for large-scale book donations from publishers. These brand-new books are available free of charge (plus a shipping & handling fee), in carton quantities, and are perfect for educators or program leaders who want to help children start home libraries of their own.

Books from the The First Book Marketplace are available 24 hours a day, while books from the The First Book National Book Bank are available as new donations come in, usually once a month.

When we receive new books from publishers for the National Book Bank, they’re sent to a (borrowed) warehouse and we ship them out to everyone who requested books. We try to hold these local book distributions in different cities around the country, which helps people who can’t afford even the shipping charges.

But you don’t have to wait until there’s a book distribution near you. Once you’re sign up with First Book, you’re eligible for free books from every single distribution, whether the warehouse is in San Diego or Boston.

So the next time you get an email letting you know about a book distribution, check out the title list and let us know which books your kids will love and we’ll do everything we can to help you get them.

And we’ll put Dayton on our list of cities to visit someday soon.

Thanks for writing!

The post We’re Coming to Your Town Someday… But It Doesn’t Matter appeared first on First Book Blog.

In 2012, Malala Yousafzai, age 15, was shot in the face by Taliban thugs for daring to promote education for women and girls in her native Pakistan. She has not only survived, she has taken her cause to the global level. Her speech before the United Nations inspired the world: “One child, one teacher, one book and one pen can change the world.”

I think of Malala often; her words and the battle she is waging against forces determined to keep her away from a world of knowledge. We know that one child with one book can change the world. But millions of children are being held back from the knowledge they’re so hungry for, not only by violent fundamentalism but by relentless poverty. This is a battle, and we have to win.

That’s why today at the Clinton Global Initiative meeting in New York, I announced First Book’s commitment to reach 10 million children worldwide by 2016 with the books they need to read, learn and succeed.

First Book Global: New Books to Kids At Home and Around the World

Each year, First Book, a nonprofit social enterprise, connects 2 million children from low-income families in the United States and Canada with brand-new, top-quality books and educational materials. Over the next three years, we will expand our efforts globally, reaching classrooms, programs and NGOs in India, Brazil, Egypt and elsewhere.

Our efforts abroad will strengthen our work domestically. One of our core missions is to bring children here in the United States books and digital content that reflects the full diversity of the world. As we expand the market for books and materials in a range of languages, countries, and cultures, the array of content we can offer in the United States will also grow. More stories will be available to all children.

We’ve been preparing for global expansion for a long time. Our team at First Book has already learned from pilot projects around the world with partners including Feed The Children, World Vision and Touch A Life Foundation. We have been in discussions with a variety of potential global partners who are eager to work with us to access new educational resources that have been so scarce for the children they serve.

A Real and Urgent Need

Make no mistake. It will be hard work. The demands on our staff, volunteers and partners will be staggering, and the fundraising needs are daunting.

But we don’t have the luxury of waiting until it’s easy.

Children in poverty around the world are waiting for us, and so are the local heroes working to educate them. They have no supply pipeline for books, calculators, educational games and digital readers. First Book is the missing piece, and they need us now.

Over the next three years, we’ll be building our content, our partnerships and our outreach, and we’ll be asking you to help us fulfill this commitment to children around the world.

Click here to sign up for occasional email updates about First Book and our global expansion, and to learn ways you can get involved.

The post The Power of Children’s Books to Change the World appeared first on First Book Blog.

I want to tell you a story about Keondra.

In a few days, Keondra will start second grade at Harrowgate Elementary School in Chester, Virginia. She cannot wait to be back in the classroom.

When she began elementary school, Keondra was a reluctant reader. She struggled academically. And then she had to repeat first grade.

But Keondra’s teacher recognized her potential and turned to First Book. Thanks to the support of our generous donors, she was able to give Keondra a new book to take home and read every month.

That’s why I’m invite everyone to join First Book’s Monthly Book Club. Your monthly gift is easy to make and provides an ongoing supply of new, high-quality books to kids like Keondra.

With each month and each new book, Keondra became a stronger reader. Her grades improved – from D’s to B’s. She fell in love with books.

A new school year is about to begin, and there are millions of kids like Keondra who urgently need to be transformed by a love of books before it is too late. Please consider joining today.

The post Meet Keondra appeared first on First Book Blog.

Is there a teacher in your life who works with kids in need?

First Book needs your help in connecting 5,000 new teachers, librarians, reading specialists and school administrators with brand new books and resources for back-to-school.

Anyone working at a Title I school is eligible to sign up now with First Book (or any program serving kids in need; it doesn’t have to be a school).

Once they’re signed up, they’ll:

1) have access to the First Book Marketplace, where they can find over 4,000 titles, including books for reluctant readers, Common Core resources, Caldecott and Newbery award-winners and graphic novels.

2) receive regular email updates about new, free books donated by publishers and available through the First Book National Book Bank.

Encourage the educators in your life to sign up today at firstbook.org/join.

Or share this message via the social media buttons below.

The post Help Your Favorite Teacher Get New Books for Back-to-School appeared first on First Book Blog.

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The lack of diversity in children’s books is a serious problem, and one that First Book is working to solve through The Stories for All Project. This terrific piece by artist Tina Kugler illustrates some statistics from the Cooperative Children’s Book Center.

And, while the illustration is charming, the reality is alarming. Sign up for email updates from First Book and we’ll let you know more about The Stories for All Project and how you can get involved.

The post The Lack of Diversity in Children’s Books, Charmingly Illustrated appeared first on First Book Blog.

First Book and our corporate partners take summer slide seriously. And we all should! It accounts for two-thirds of the achievement gap between poor children and affluent children in the communities we call home.

Two of our corporate partners, CBS EcoMedia and Bob Evans, recently took to Detroit to battle summer slide. Together they provided 2,500 new books to schools in Detroit through EcoMedia’s EducationAd program. EducationAd repurposes CBS advertiser dollars to fund projects that benefit education within local communities.

To celebrate the donation, employee volunteers from Bob Evans served up breakfast and books at Gompers Elementary – reading with students and providing each 2^nd grader with two new books to take home. CBS EcoMedia President and Founder Paul Polizzotto and Bob Evans’ mascots Biscuits and Gravy attended to share their love of reading with students.

The post Biscuit, Gravy and a Boatload of Books for Detroit: First Book’s Partners Combat the Summer Slide appeared first on First Book Blog.

Click on graphic to enlarge.

For kids, few moments in life are more glorious than the end of the school year and the start of summer vacation. Hooray! Three whole months of sweet freedom!

But when school’s out, kids from low-income families have a real problem on their hands.

Unlike their more affluent peers, most of them don’t spend summer break at the library or reading books in the backseat on family trips. In fact, many of them won’t open a book until school starts up again.

Those three months off take a disastrous toll. Experts call the effect “summer slide” and it erases months of hard-earned progress in school, lost ground that kids in need can’t afford.

Books are the answer. Studies show that kids from low-income families who have access to books over the summer not only beat the summer slide, but make even greater gains than kids from wealthy and middle-class families.

You can help save a child from summer slide by putting books into her hands. Click here to help.

The post Kids Who Read Beat Summer Slide appeared first on First Book Blog.

Last year First Book made it a goal to reach more kids in need by doubling the number of local schools and community programs in our national network, from 25,000 to 50,000.

We’ve reached that number! Over 50,000 Title I classrooms, early childhood education programs, afterschool programs, museums and libraries, housing authorities, faith-based organizations, military family support programs, health clinics and others are signed up with First Book, and every one of them now has permanent, ongoing access to a steady stream of brand-new, high-quality books and educational resources.

That’s terrific news, and we’re grateful to all the partners and supporters that helped us get there.

But we’re not knocking off work just yet. There are 30 million children in the United States living in low-income homes, and access to books is scarce for far too many of them. There are over 1.3 million programs and classrooms still waiting for us, and we need to reach them all.

Help make that happen! If you know someone who works with kids from low-income families, tell them about First Book. Forward them this blog post, or send them to our website, where they can sign up.

It’s quick, it’s free, and we have brand-new books just waiting for them.

At First Book, we want to see all kids become strong readers, the critical step to succeeding in school and in life. But all too often the children we work with have books with characters and stories that aren’t relevant to their lives. And that makes it harder to turn them on to reading.*

So today we’re taking an extraordinary step toward remedying this problem: The Stories for All Project.

We are not the first people to complain and worry about this issue. So we knew if we were actually going to make a difference we needed a market-driven solution. In short, we needed to put our money where our mouth is.

We reached out to the publishing industry with the offer to purchase $500,000 worth of books featuring voices that are rarely represented in children’s literature: minorities, characters of color, and others whose experiences resonate with the children we serve. The response was overwhelming. In fact, we received so many great proposals that we decided to double our commitment, purchasing $500,000 worth of new titles from both HarperCollins and Lee & Low Books — $1 million worth of books altogether. We’ll be able to offer hundreds of thousands of new books to the kids we serve.

With these major purchases, First Book is continuing to harness market forces to create social change; by aggregating the untapped demand for books and resources in thousands of low-income communities, we’re helping to create a new market for the publishing industry. When that happens, they respond by publishing more titles with more relevant content. Everyone really does win, and that’s how you make real, systemic change both possible and sustainable.

This is an exciting step! But it’s just the beginning. The Stories for All Project will include more titles reflecting diverse communities, including minorities, LGBTQ and special needs populations. We’re also convening a leadership council of noted authors, illustrators and other leaders to help us create content, and reach out to even more schools and programs so that we can reach the children and teachers who are waiting for us..

Join us! If you work with children from low-income neighborhoods, or know someone who does, sign up with First Book today. We have books for you too.

* In a recent survey of more than 2,000 educators from First Book schools and programs, 90 percent of respondents agreed that the children in their programs would be more enthusiastic readers if they had access to books with characters, stories and images that reflect their lives and their neighborhoods.

Kyle Zimmer is the president and CEO of First Book.

Click here (or on the flyer above) to sign up! Feel free to share this link, or download the graphic and share.

“Every dollar we invest in high-quality early education can save more than seven dollars later on – by boosting graduation rates, reducing teen pregnancy, even reducing violent crime.” — President Barack Obama

I was grateful to hear the president talk about early childhood education tonight, and the enormous impact it has on our nation.

Lack of access to education and resources for America’s most vulnerable children is a national crisis, every bit as serious as immigration reform, gun control and the national debt. But unlike so many other complex problems, this is one we know how to solve.

We have been talking about these children for generations. All that’s lacking is the political will.

Although the issues we face are complex, we know that early childhood education is the most straightforward solution; every study shows that there’s nothing more valuable than turning a child into a reader at an early age. They enter school with greater knowledge and vocabularies; they do better not just on reading tests, but on math tests. They have the foundation they need to succeed — in school and in life.

We know what happens otherwise. As President Obama alluded to, kids who drop out of high school are far more likely to be jobless, become teen parents, or end up in prison, and far less likely to become informed, engaged citizens. While we debate endlessly, an entire generation of leaders, thinkers, engineers, artists and writers is being lost to us for lack of opportunities and resources.

Children from low-income neighborhoods are the most vulnerable. 80 percent of the preschools and after school programs serving children in need do not have a single book for the children they serve. In some of the poorest neighborhoods in the country there is only one book available for every 300 children.

First Book, the organization I lead, is committed to helping the 30 million American children living in low-income neighborhoods become success stories. We work with local educators and community leaders across the country to supply them with new, high-quality books. They understand the needs of the children and families in their community, and First Book provides them with the books and educational resources they need.

So I urge all of you to get involved right now. If you work with kids in need at a Title I school, Head Start center or community program, sign up with First Book today to get new, high-quality books for your kids. You can also volunteer, or donate to support our work.

This is a crisis, but it’s one that we can solve. And — if we work together — we will.

Kyle Zimmer is president and CEO of First Book.

At First Book, we do everything in our power to make sure that kids from low-income families are getting the books they need. So we don’t just drop a box of used books off at the door. We work hard to make sure we offer Newbery and Caldecott winners, popular titles, books that kids want to read. The books are always brand-new, and we let the educators closest to the children make the decisions about which titles their kids will respond to.

But all too often, kids from low-income neighborhoods — if they have books at all — have books with characters and stories that aren’t relevant to their lives. And that makes it harder to turn them on to reading.

So today we’re taking another big step to make sure we’re doing everything we can to turn those kids into readers. We’ve reached out to our friends in the publishing industry with an extraordinary offer.

As the centerpiece of our new OMG Books (Offering More Great Books) initiative, we’re stepping up with $500,000 to purchase hundreds of thousands of new books featuring voices that are rarely represented in children’s literature: minorities, characters of color, and others whose experiences resonate with the children we serve, characters and stories that are relevant to their lives.

We already work closely with leading publishers to provide new books for teachers and program leaders serving children in need. Last year we purchased three million new books from major publishers, which we made available – at significant discounts – to the 50,000 schools and programs in our national network, through the First Book Marketplace.

At first, this approach seems unusual to some people. Why are we selling books to programs? Why aren’t we just giving them away?

Actually, we are giving books away — millions of them every year — through our National Book Bank program. But the First Book Marketplace is a different kinds of innovation.

Through the First Book Marketplace, we’re aggregating the buying power of tens of thousands of Title I classrooms, after-school programs, homeless shelters and others serving the most vulnerable children. Those classrooms and programs may not have the funds to go into a bookstore and buy books at retail prices, but when they come together through First Book, they represent a real market for the publishing industry. Which, in turn, benefits by reaching new customers they wouldn’t otherwise be able to reach.

This new initiative is a big deal, and we’re excited! The offer is out to every leading publisher, and we’re already getting back proposals. We’ll share more news as soon as we have it.

NOTE: If you work for a publisher, or are just interested in fine print, check out the request here. All proposals welcome!

Happy holidays, from everyone at First Book!

We had a big year here at First Book! I want to let you know everything we accomplished this year, and ask for your support as we continue our work to transform education by bringing new books to children from low-income families.

First Book celebrated two big milestones this year – our 20th anniversary and the distribution of our 100 millionth book. We also expanded the First Book network to bring brand-new books to a lot more teachers, librarians and local program leaders; 22,000 new schools and programs signed up in 2012, an increase of 92%.

On top of that, we delivered 11.2 million books, started local First Book volunteer chapters in a dozen new communities, and started offering critical new categories of books that teachers tell us are badly needed: anti-bullying books, healthy living books, bilingual/non-English titles and more.

But I don’t want to overwhelm you with numbers and statistics.

What all those things mean is new, high-quality books into the hands of kids from low-income families, the books they desperately need to succeed – in school and in life.

I will share with you a comment we received recently from Sue Carnes, a librarian at Kate Bell Elementary in Houston, about working with First Book to get new books for her students this year:

“First Book is the light at the end of the tunnel, the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. I wish you could have seen the smiles on the faces of the kids and teachers. Our students are never without a book now, even when the library is closed. Sometimes when things sound too good to be true, they are both good and true.”

Thank you so much for your support of First Book and the children who are counting on us.

Kyle Zimmer
President, First Book

* Click on the graphic to see a bigger, snazzier version.

Learn more about how First Book provides new books to kids in need, and how you can get involved, at firstbook.org.

Together, we’ve put over 100 million new books into the hands of children who need them, and we’re counting on your support this holiday season. This year, thanks to our friends at Disney, the impact of your gift will be tripled!

Every $2.50 donated to First Book provides one brand-new, high-quality book for a child from a low-income family. And Disney has agreed to match every one of those books with two additional books, from now through the end of the year. Click here to donate.

As always, when you donate to First Book, you can be sure your money is being used wisely; 97% of donations to First Book go directly to provide new, high-quality books to kids in need. (That’s how we won our four-star rating from Charity Navigator.)

Thanks for being part of our work, and happy holidays from everyone at First Book!

What to give your favorite aunt (or anyone else) for Christmas? Fruit cake? A reindeer scarf? Those mittens that are attached together with yarn?

How about the gift of reading to kids in need, in her name?

That’s right, every $2.50 you donate provides a brand-new, high-quality book for a child from a low-income family. Your favorite aunt will love it. and you can let her know with one of these snazzy e-cards:

As first-responders are working to provide these families with electricity, water, and other critical resources, First Book—in partnership with our local volunteers and partners—is raising funds to restock school and home libraries. After distributing more than 5 million books in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, we know new books can be valuable lifelines for those whose worlds have been turned upside down.

Your help will ensure that children in need will have new books — stories at bedtime, the chance to be transported to another world, and the opportunity to return to normalcy.

Every $2.50 you contribute will provide a new book to a child affected by the storm.

Your impact will also be DOUBLED as each gift of $2.50 will be matched by an additional book from First Book’s publishing partners.