USING BANNED BOOKS TO SELL READING TO KIDS
Justin Stanley founded the Uprise Books Project with a very simple mission: distribute banned or challenged books to underprivileged kids to encourage them to read. A Winner of our 2013 Innovations in Reading Prize, Stanley shares his personal experiences of poverty, the difficulties of championing banned books to schools, and how an Innovations in Reading Prize is helping propel his important work forward.
National Book Foundation: What inspired your Innovations in Reading-winning program?
Justin Stanley: My family didn’t have much when I was a kid. My younger brother and I were raised by a single mother and when we were in elementary school we were completely dependent on government and community help to make ends meet. I knew what government cheese tasted like and the various ways people looked at you when your mom pulled out a book of food stamps in the grocery store line, what it was like to be we-have-to-skip-the-electric-bill-this-month-if-we-want-to-eat poor.
I also remember the day in second grade when I came to school to find a group of strangers from some place called “RIF” standing behind a table of books, telling us kids that we could have one. For free. I couldn’t tell you what specific book I chose that day, but I’ve never forgotten how great it felt to bring it home.
Continue reading Justin’s interview here.
Want to know more about NBF’s Innovations in Reading Prize? Click here.
Censorship is most often being used not to challenge racism and sexism and homophobia, but to reinforce it.
50 tattoo tributes to the books you’ll (hopefully) love forever.
More National Book Award Winners and Finalists that are among the most frequently challenged in the books. Follow Banned Books Week here.
We all know how important it is to inspire a love for reading early on in young children — and one place that owns this space is Barbershop Books, a community-based program started in Harlem that creates child-friendly spaces in barbershops across the U.S. for young boys to read in.
CHECK OUT the National Book Award Finalists who Amazon chose for their 2014 Best Books of the Year!
Station Eleven, Best Science-Fiction novel
Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant?, Best Graphic Memoir
PLUS– Several of our 2014 LONGLISTED Books are also Amazon Editor Selects:
The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digitial Revolution
Greenglass House
Skink– No Surrender
How can you even know what the world is until you’ve got those stories in you?
A patron of Innovations in Reading Prize winner Street Books, discussing Lord of the Flies, 1984, and The Grapes of Wrath.
We don’t want to stay in a city where the books of others are banned.
For several years I slept on a lumpy, shifting pillow—I kept exactly twelve books underneath, curated anew each night. They were a physical insurance policy against the potential of waking up lonely in the night. I’ve always thought of books that way, as safeguards and tickets. I like to keep a near-fortress of books surrounding me.
Today is Operation Teen Book Drop 2014 and we will be leaving copies of our 2013 YPL #NBAwards-honored books in various locations throughout NYC. Look out for more #instagrams throughout the day of our books waiting for their new owners! @readergirlz #rockthedrop !!! #teens #books #teenlit #YA #NBAwards #coolfreestuff
alwaysbringabookwithyou
all-these-paperback-dreams
Barnes and Nobles is gonna start serving food and alcohol.
Everybody’s cracking jokes about how it’s a desperate attempt to stay relevant in the age of Amazon.
But you know what? Props to them. This is exactly what Blockbuster didn’t do. At no point was Blockbuster like “Hey, movie rentals aren’t the lucrative enterprise they once were. Perhaps it’s time we become known for our cheesy garlic bread.”
that’s a fantastic plan, honestly? i would 100% go sit at a bookshop, buy a glass of wine, and pick up the newest biography. 50/50 i’d decide to buy it after a couple chapters, and even if i don’t, that’s still money i spent at B&N!
They could host book clubs with food and drinks where one of the employees shares their experiences with a book of their choice and tries to convince the guests to buy it.
Barnes and noble realizing the only reason people go to brick and mortar stores is for the experience and access to an enjoyable physical space they can socialize in (sure isnt for the price) and capitalizing on that is a stroke of genius and a really refreshing approach to the dilemma of competing with online stores
