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It’s time for Book Up Summer!
The Page Ahead book fairs have begun! Through the end of June, more than 22,000 children across Washington will select their twelve brand-new books to keep and read over the summer. The Book Up Summer program gives these young students the tools and incentive they need to read during summer vacation. If you’d like to help kids select books at a book fair, sign up for shifts here (registration required if new user) or email Laura to sign up your group or company!
This year, schools received additional shipments of books highly requested by both students and their families! To better support multilingual learners, for the first time schools received extra books in multiple world languages, including Vietnamese, Russian, Pashto, and Somali. In addition, copies of Dogman: Grime and Punishment were distributed to all schools with participating 2nd graders. Thank you to our amazing community for providing the support we need to expand Book Up Summer and provide home libraries for even more young readers and their families!
Partner Spotlight: Thank you Amazon!
We want to extend our deepest thanks to our amazing partners at Amazon. We’re overflowing with gratitude for their unwavering dedication to fostering a love for reading by putting books in the hands of kids who need them most.
After an incredibly successful inaugural year, Amazon is once again supporting every single school participating in Book Up Summer from Seattle Public Schools! Their support goes beyond financial contributions for books and bags; Amazon team members roll up their sleeves and dive into the magic of literacy as Book Buddies at schools. Together, they guide students in handpicking 12 captivating books to take home for summer reading and beyond. We are grateful for their continued support and dedication to championing literacy with us.
To Amazon, we say a resounding THANK YOU for making a difference in our city, and shaping the future of our kids—one page at a time!
Amazon volunteers working with students at Book Up Summer
A Taste for Reading was a success!
We are thrilled so many people were able to gather with us on Thursday, May 2 for our annual luncheon, where we celebrated multilingual learners!
The program was full of amazing testimonials and success stories, from hearing Graciela’s story about growing up as the daughter of asparagus cutters and how she shows up for her students every day to seeing Laura, a Page Ahead kid, on the stage speaking about the impact of having your own books. We were all reminded of how the work that is done here helps all kids. Thank you to our speakers for showing us and reminding us to give back to the communities we belong to!
It also goes without saying, but, the kids from Panther Lake Elementary in Federal Way did a PHENOMENAL job with their performance of Federico and the Wolf by Rebecca Gomez. They really brought the joy of reading to stage!
Together we raised more than $219,000 to give more kids books. Thank you to all of you who gave to support home libraries for students across Washington state!
Weren’t able to attend? Click here to view the full event on our YouTube channel and you can still give a child a home library of 12 new books right here!
You gaveBIG!
We’d like to thank all of the donors who gave to Page Ahead for GiveBIG 2024! Thank you for making sure kids in need get a great start with reading. Your gifts helped give more than 100 children a home library for their own this summer!
Thak you for giveing me 12 book for free and for helping me be a batter reader. You are makeing me love reading. Sincerley, Hayat
p.s. my sister read to much
Left Coast Crime Conference 2024 – Updates
A heartfelt shout-out to the folks who organized and volunteered at the Left Coast Crime conference this year. With amazing panels, auction items, and a plethora of book-lovers, Page Ahead received more than $9,000 in donations and is also going to be the recipient of any royalties that are made from the conference anthology, The Killing Rain.
Thank you so much Left Coast Crime, we are so deeply appreciative of your hard work to put the conference together and for all the support you generated for kids and reading!
Staff are reading…
Our community outreach specialist, Laura, is currently reading Come and Get It by Kiley Reid. Here’s what she has to say about the book:
Come and Get It is a book where it feels like nothing and everything are happening simultaneously. This book is a real page-turner; Reid deals with issues of classism, racism, and friendship feuds in a masterful way where I felt instantly transported back to the college dorms. Highly recommend!
