National Book Foundation - Book Rich Environments :: Book Deserts

Eight Publishers Commit Over 420,000 Books to Second Year of Book Rich Environments Initiative

National Book Foundation: April 2018

The Book Rich Environments (BRE) initiative, now in its second year, aims to combat lack of literary access, often termed “book deserts,” by connecting communities with resources that help foster life-long, joyful relationships between readers and books. BRE is a collaboration between the National Book Foundation, which serves as lead partner, the U.S. Departments of Education (ED) and Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the Urban Libraries Council, and the National Center for Families Learning, a new partner. This unique program works with HUD-assisted communities to strengthen home libraries, facilitate book-distribution events, and provide the information and tools to establish long-term connections between families, libraries, and other literary resources.

This year, with book contribution commitments from eight U.S. book publishers (Algonquin Books for Young Readers/Workman Publishing, Candlewick Press, Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins Publishers, Macmillan Publishers, Penguin Random House, Scholastic, and Simon & Schuster), BRE has secured a total of 422,000 free, high-quality, diverse books that will go to children and families in HUD-assisted communities.

BRE programming will once again take place throughout the U.S., from Missouri to Colorado to New York, where last year, through BRE, the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) received the largest book donation in its history.  37 sites across 19 states will participate, and two sites will be joining for the first time . . . READ MORE >>