World Read Aloud Day Partners

LitWorld is proud to announce that Booksource is a Corporate Sponsor for World Read Aloud Day 2012. Booksource has been a family-owned company since their founding in 1974, consistently cultivating a corporate culture that places a strong emphasis on caring and respect for their extended family, employees, customers and partners. Booksource provides the education market with the largest selection of new and classic titles and classroom collections. They currently have over 30,000 titles in their catalog representing more than 150 publishers, and their staff has the expertise to ensure that their customers get the right books based on their needs. Booksource has the books students want to read, and the books educators want their students to read. Learn more at booksource.com.

826 National is a nonprofit network of eight writing and tutoring centers that provide under-resourced students, ages 6-18, with opportunities to explore their creativity and improve their writing skills. We also aim to help teachers get their classes excited about writing. Our mission is based on the understanding that great leaps in learning can happen with one-on-one attention, and that strong writing skills are fundamental to future success. Last year our tutoring centers - located in Ann Arbor, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington, DC - served nearly 30,000 students. Learn more at 826national.org.

Asia Initiatives is an international group of individuals and companies with a mission to support grassroots organizations in micro-level sustainable development in Asia in the areas of micro credit, bridging the digital divide, education, and capacity building. The New York entity is a registered tax exempt 501c3 organization, while the Tokyo entity is registered under the Japanese NGO law. Asia Initiatives is inspired by Prof. M.S. Swaminathan, a scientist and a humanist, internationally known as the Father of the Green Revolution in Asia. He is the recipient of 56 honorary doctorates, the Ramon Magsaysay Award, World Food Prize, Albert Einstein World Science Award, and several other honors. He is currently the UNESCO professor of Eco-technology and is the President of the Pugwash Conference of Science and World Affairs. All our projects conform to his philosophy of empowerment. Learn more at asiainitiatives.org.

Blue Star Families is a non-profit military family support organization, created by military families for military families. We are committed to supporting one another through the unique challenges of military service and asking the civilian population to help sustain us in our choice to serve. We connect military families with each other regardless of rank, branch of service or physical location, and aim to empower military family members to create the best personal and family life possible for themselves. We offer a program call Books on Bases that aims to have a positive impact on military families through book donations to base libraries, Department of Defense schools, and military-impacted public schools. Learn more at bluestarfam.org.

Books of Wonder is your source for the finest in children's books — both new and old. Founded in 1980, Books of Wonder is New York City's largest and oldest children's bookstore and the city's leading specialist in children's literature. Books of Wonder is the destination for old, rare and first edition titles as well as original children's book art, and also publishes many of the Oz classics, including the original L Frank Baum titles as well as later Oz stories written by other writers. So whether you're looking for the latest in children's books, classics from the past, the joys of the world of Oz, or great children's book art, Books of Wonder is your source for the very finest in the world of children's books. Learn more at booksofwonder.com.

The Children's Book Council is the national nonprofit trade association for children's trade book publishers. The CBC offers children's publishers the opportunity to work together on issues of importance to the industry at large, including educational programming, literacy advocacy, and collaborations with other national organizations. The CBC sponsors Children's Book Week, a celebration of books and reading since 1919 and the nation's longest-running literacy initiative, and is proud to partner with other national organizations on co-sponsored reading lists, educational programming, and literacy initiatives. Learn more at cbcbooks.org.

The Children of Kibera Foundation  envisions a bright future for the youth of Kibera. The Children of Kibera Foundation aims to expand access to quality education for underprivileged children by offering scholarships to prestigious boarding schools, providing additional resources to under funded schools, and developing computer education for schools and the local community. We believe that a good education can empower the children of Kibera to overcome extreme poverty, disease, and social alienation. We welcome organizations and individuals to join us on this mission to educate the future of Kenya. Learn more at childrenofkibera.org.

The Children's Village mission is to work in partnership with families to help society's most vulnerable children so that they become educationally proficient, economically productive, and socially responsible members of their communities. Behind this mission lie three core beliefs: First, all children and youth need connections to adults, preferably family members, who believe in them and will remain connected throughout their lives. Second, education, appropriate social behavior, and job skills are essential to functioning independently in society. And third, everyone has strengths and the desire to make his or her life happy and fulfilling; with support and the tools to overcome obstacles, most can and will succeed. Learn more at childrensvillage.org.

Founded in 1991, Everybody Wins! New York is devoted to promoting children's literacy through shared reading experiences with caring adults. Everybody Wins! partners with corporate and community volunteers to increase academic and life prospects for underserved children throughout the New York metropolitan area. Everybody Wins!' signature program, Power Lunch, pairs volunteers with children in elementary schools for weekly reading and mentoring during lunchtime. In Power Lunch, as in all of the organization's programs, everybody wins! - the students, their schools, the volunteers, their companies and ultimately, society. To learn more, visit everybodywinsny.org.

The Ezra Jack Keats Foundation has created many programs that support children and educators as well as libraries, schools and other institutions. They include Minigrants for school and library programs that foster creativity and diversity; and the Ezra Jack Keats Bookmaking Competition, run in partnership with the New York City Department of Education. The Ezra Jack Keats New Writer and New Illustrator Awards are given annually to reward the production of outstanding children’s picture books. The Foundation also funds reading programs, concerts and scholarships in art and music, and has endowed fellowships in children’s literature. In addition to handling Keats’s books and related business, the Foundation is responsible for the Keats Archive, in the de Grummond Children’s Literature Collection in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. To honor Ezra Jack Keats on the 50th anniversary of The Snowy Day in 2012, the Foundation is asking schools around the country to celebrate the children’s classic. Learn more at ezra-jack-keats.org.

Figment is a free online community for teens and young adults to create, discover, and share new reading and writing - from sonnets to sci-fi to personal essays. In addition to giving emerging writers a place to publish and share their work, Figment also offers them the chance to interact with professional writers through author-judged writing contests, Q-and-As, and other original programming. Through our private Figment Groups, educators can create free virtual writers’ workshops, where students can create and revise writing in a safe space before publishing to the entire Figment community. With 110,000 members and a library of 260,000 user-written works, Figment is the place to write yourself in. Learn more at figment.com.

Flipreads is the premiere source of electronic books from and about the Philippines and Asia. Flipreads serves as a secure distribution platform for Filipino and Asian publishers, authors, and other content providers and gives the Asian reader easier access to e-books. Flipreads is operated by Flipside Publishing Services Inc., which is involved in leading-edge conversion, production, and publishing of e-books. Our goal is to enrich the global electronic reading experience by publishing select Asian e-books while helping other international publishers properly convert their content. Learn more at flipsidepublishing.wordpress.com.

FreeBalance helps governments around the world leverage robust Government Resource Planning (GRP) technology to accelerate country growth.FreeBalance provides software solutions that support reform and modernization to improve governance, transparency and accountability. Good governance is required to improve development results.As an active participant in the global community, FreeBalance is committed to international development and corporate social responsibility. Learn more at freebalance.com.

The Millennium Cities Initiative (MCI), a project of the Earth Institute, Columbia University, was founded by Earth Institute Director Jeffrey D. Sachs as an outgrowth of the national-level policy work carried out by the United Nations Millennium Project. MCI’s core mission is to help underserved cities across sub-Saharan Africa complete an urban transformation - one essential to attaining the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) - thereby helping to make severe urban poverty a thing of the past. MCI helps selected, under-resourced urban centers become viable, sustainable “Millennium Cities” - each with distinct livelihood opportunities, improved access to public services and links with the countryside and international markets. MCI accomplishes this through a combination of research and policy analysis and by working with local, domestic, and international partners to stimulate economic and social development. Learn more at mci.ei.columbia.edu.

Via their website and blog, PaperTigers seeks to highlight multi-cultural and trans-cultural children’s books and literacy issues, both globally and with a particular focus on the Pacific Rim and South Asia, as a resource for librarians, teachers, parents, and publishers. The Spirit of PaperTigers Outreach project provides annual donations of a selected set of multicultural children's books to participating schools and libraries, who provide feedback from both adults and children, to be featured on the PaperTigers Outreach website. In certain places across the world, the Spirit of PaperTigers project also engages with local communities to obtain access to clean water in areas of need. Books and Water: Nourishing the Mind and Body – offering together a vital source to promote literacy, education and development, while contributing to a fuller and healthier community. Learn more at papertigers.org.

Project PEARLS is an international non-profit organization helping the poorest of the poor children in the Philippines to have a better life through our various outreach programs (Education, Health and Nutrition). We are hoping we can give them: Peace, Education, Aspiration, Respect, Love, Smiles. Project PEARLS is not a fancy outreach ministry; it is nothing large or grandiose; it doesn't compete or seek for glory. We just simply want to feed the hungry, clothe the naked and hold the hands of those who hurt. Our vision is to end child poverty as poverty denies children their rights to health, nutrition and a basic education. Learn more at projectpearls.org.

Bestselling author James Patterson's ReadKiddoRead.com is a site designed to help parents, teachers, and librarians ignite the next generation's excitement about reading by recommending books carefully chosen for their ability to make kids' mouths water – books kids can really sink their teeth into. Complete with age designations, thoughtful book descriptions, author and celebrity interviews, and more, ReadKiddoRead.com helps make finding a book for a young person easy and, ultimately, rewarding. ReadKiddoRead is the winner of The National Book Foundation's Innovations in Reading prize and the Association for Library Services to Children's Great Websites for Kids award. Learn more at readkiddoread.com.

Read To Lead is a national movement that promotes reading as an essential component in creating, developing, and inspiring our future leaders. As an educational partner with businesses and the communities we serve, we help build awareness of the power of reading and its vital benefits. Read to Lead supports charities, literacy projects and programs for children, young adults and adults helping all ages and stages rediscover the transformative power of reading. Learn more at readtoleadtoday.org.

The non-profit mission of ReadWorks is to help K-6 teachers become more effective in teaching reading comprehension to increase their students' achievement. ReadWorks provides teachers, online and at no cost to them or their schools, with research-based reading comprehension lessons and non-fiction reading passages. By supporting teachers and principals directly, ReadWorks circumnavigates systemic barriers to scalable, sustainable improvement in teacher effectiveness and student achievement in reading comprehension. Learn more at readworks.org.

Scholastic is the world's largest publisher and distributor of children's books and a leader in educational technology and children's media. Our products and materials including children's books, magazines, technology, teacher materials, television programming, film, videos and toys are distributed through schools, school-based book clubs and book fairs, libraries, retail stores, television networks and scholastic.com. Scholastic supports every child’s right to read and encourages everyone to join the global literacy campaign, Read Every Day. Lead a Better Life. Learn more at scholastic.com.

The Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators is a global community of children’s book writers and illustrators. We are a nonprofit organization with a mission to foster public appreciation of children’s books and to support the vibrant community of people who create and promote them: writers, illustrators, editors, publishers, agents, librarians, educators, booksellers and others involved with literature for young people.  Our organization supports this community through grants, programs and events that increase the quality and quantity of children’s books.  We strive to promote literacy and reading across the globe so that all young people can access the diverse works created by our members. In addition, we act as a consolidated voice for professional writers and illustrators in matters of fair contracts, rights and censorship. Learn more at scbwi.org.

Stenhouse publishes professional development books and videos by teachers and for teachers. Our titles cover a range of content areas -- from literacy and mathematics to science, social studies, the arts, and environmental education -- as well as a variety of topics, including classroom management, assessment, and differentiation. All of our work is grounded in sound theory and research and informed by our authors’ years of experience in the classroom. Stenhouse Publishers is part of Highlights for Children and a division of their subsidiary Teachers' Publishing Group. Learn more at stenhouse.com.

We Give Books provides parents, caregivers, and educators with immediate access to a growing digital collection of Penguin Group's classic children's literature - stories that they can enjoy in the classroom or at home to enhance early reading experiences. For every Penguin or DK book read online at wegivebooks.org, the Pearson Foundation donates a book to a child in partnership with one of the exemplary international, national, or local literacy organizations that the We Give Books program helps to support around the world. Through We Give Books, readers will give millions of books each year. Learn more at wegivebooks.org.

Women LEAD empowers women and girls to take key leadership positions alongside men in Nepal. Women LEAD believes that educating and empowering women to fully participate at all levels of decision-making is key to creating sustainable peace and development in post-conflict Nepal. Women LEAD provides young female high school students in Kathmandu, Nepal with the personal and professional skills to pursue their vision for change. Young women have the passion and the vision to create change in their communities, but simply lack the resources to do so. We address poverty in a more locally owned, sustainable and innovative way than existing development projects in Nepal by building the capacity of future female leaders to tackle the root causes of poverty in their communities and nation. Our programs have trained more than 200 young women so far in leadership development through workshops, internships, school leadership and social entrepreneurship. Learn more at women-lead.org.