ABC Summer Reading Program to Feature Reading Without Walls Bingo

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Reading Without Walls, a nationwide program started by National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature Gene Luen Yang to celebrate reading and diversity, will be the centerpiece of this year’s summer reading initiative sponsored by the ABC Children’s Group at ABA in partnership with the Children’s Book Council, Every Child a Reader, the Library of Congress, and Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group.

Reading Without Walls logoABA members participating in the summer reading program will support Reading Without Walls via a bingo-style challenge. Downloadable promotional materials, including bingo cards, award certificates, and a press release template, will be available to ABA members on BookWeb.org starting the week of April 17. Reading Without Walls bookmarks, courtesy of Macmillan Children’s Publishing, will be sent to stores in ABA’s Summer Children’s White Box mailing.

To spread appreciation and understanding of others, Reading Without Walls challenges readers to:

  1. Read a book about a character who doesn’t look like you or live like you.
  2. Read a book about a topic you don’t know much about.
  3. Read a book in a format that you don’t normally read for fun.

Watch for more on the ABC Summer Reading Program’s Reading Without Walls bingo game in upcoming editions of Bookselling This Week.

To help bookstores, schools, libraries, and comic shops celebrate Reading Without Walls, Macmillan Children’s has created a Reading Without Walls Digital Activity Guide as well as a Digital Toolkit of images, which are sized for websites, social media pages, and e-newsletters. Macmillan also plans for Reading Without Walls to become an annual program.

Booksellers, librarians, and teachers are encouraged to share pictures of everything they are doing for Reading Without Walls by tweeting at @mackidsbooks, @01FirstSecond, or @FierceReads using the #ReadingWithoutWalls hashtag.

Learn more at ReadingWithoutWalls.com.