First Books

FirstBook.org is an orga­ni­za­tion that helps kids in need get access to new books of their very own. I’m a huge fan of what they do and have per­son­al­ly sup­port­ed their mis­sion for a long time, so it’s an incred­i­ble hon­or to have one of my books select­ed for their mar­ket­place. It’s an even big­ger hon­or to have one of my books select­ed for their new diver­si­ty cam­paign, called Sto­ries for All. Accord­ing to their webpage,

First Book’s Sto­ries for All Project™ Arms Edu­ca­tors with Diverse, Inclu­sive Children’s Books to Fuel Learn­ing, Pro­mote Edu­ca­tion­al Equi­ty.

With Sup­port from Top Busi­ness Lead­ers, Non­prof­it Launch­es 60,000 New-to-Paper­back Books, as Part of its Mar­ket-Dri­ven Solu­tion to Make Diverse Sto­ries Afford­able and Rel­e­vant for Those Serv­ing Chil­dren in Need.

What that means is that teach­ers and oth­er pro­fes­sion­als who work with under­priv­i­leged chil­dren can now request a spe­cial edi­tion of Emmanuel’s Dream for just $3.30, which means more chil­dren will get a chance to read about Emmanuel’s sto­ry and hope­ful­ly be inspired to fol­low their own dreams!
Short­ly after the announce­ment, First­Book host­ed a Twit­ter chat about diver­si­ty in chil­dren’s books with fel­low #Sto­ries­ForAll author Jes­sixa Bagley and I. You can read the tran­script here.
Please help me cheer on First­Book, along with their spon­sors and part­ners, for rec­og­niz­ing the need for diverse books for kids and their ongo­ing com­mit­ment to get­ting books into the hands of the chil­dren who need them most. And, if you wish to make a finan­cial con­tri­bu­tion, you can do so here. Thanks!