I’ll Follow the Moon

A special thank you to author Stephanie Lisa Tara for her donation of 40 copies of her wonderful children’s book “I’ll Follow the Moon”.

Stephanie has donated many thousands of her books to Reader to Reader over the years and we appreciate every single one.

She brings lots of smiles to young faces!

Call for Book Donations and Book Drives!

Doing some spring cleaning? Looking for a community service project? Just want to find a new home for the books your kids outgrew?

Reader to Reader is in need of new or gently used children's books, particularly for K-5 students. We are on the lookout for nonfiction as well as fiction of any genre. You can help by donating your books or by holding a book drive in your community! Book drives are a great way to fulfill a community service requirement or teach the youth at your school, church or synagogue about service. As you can see from this picture, kids have a blast giving back!

Learn more about holding a book drive here.

If you live around our Amherst office, you can email info@readertoreader.org to schedule a time to drop your books off. If you're one of our far-away fans, please mail your books to:

Reader to Reader
38 Woodside Ave
Cadigan Center
Amherst, MA 01002

Thank you for your support as we get books into the hands of the children who need them most.

Books are Always in Vogue!

A very special thank you to Teen Vogue Magazine for their generous donation of over 300 new young adult novels that are now filling the shelves at New Heights Academy in New York City.

Every one of them will be enjoyed!

Go, Rudi!

Sometimes there is a student who is chugging along so well that you just want to hand them books and get out of the way.

Meet Rudi. He's a third grade student at Zanetti School in Springfield, Massachusetts, and with the reading recovery team there he has quickly rocketed from a late-kindergarten reading level to reading on grade level. Making progress like that means you go through reading material awfully quickly. Karen Schreiner, the City Connects Coordinator at Zanetti, let us know right away that Rudi needed books at home so he can continue his great progress.

Not surprisingly, Rudi's tastes are pretty omnivorous. "He loves nonfiction books about animals, sports, and natural science like tornadoes and volcanoes," Karen told us. So we packed up a box of books and brought them over. We even got to meet Rudi, who gives a firm handshake and looks you right in the eye when he says hello.

Of all the books, he was most excited about the young readers' edition of Moby Dick.

Go, Rudi!

Opening Books in Ometepe

Catherine Gobron, Program Director at North Star: Self-Directed Learning for Teens, sent us this photo from her recent trip to Nicaragua, which brought Spanish-language children’s books donated by Reader to Reader to the village of Omotepe.

Ometepe is an island formed by two volcanoes rising from Lake Nicaragua.

Catherine led a group of student volunteers on a service trip to develop a small children's library in the community.

What a great job they did!

Adding Books in the Classroom at Zanetti

We received a very nice thank you note from Ms. Pouliot and her class at Zanetti School in Springfield, Massachusetts. She also sent this great picture of some of the Zanetti Scholars of Room 211 enjoying the books donated by Reader to Reader.

We are very excited to be working with Zanetti, which combines traditional education principles with Montessori methods to create a unique public school concept in Springfield.

Happy reading, kids!

In New Orleans, Reader to Reader Helps a New School through an Old Connection

Amherst College student and mentor in Reader to Reader’s Read, Think, Share mentoring program Jeon Domingue gives us a guest post on how she discovered her job at Reader to Reader intersected with her childhood in New Orleans.

“Before Hurricane Katrina, public libraries and school libraries in New Orleans presented books that had some kind of interest for the different people in the city. After Hurricane Katrina, the libraries went downhill. Many books were in horrible condition, and the books that were in pretty good condition were not books that many children and teenagers would want to read for fun. The library at my little brother’s elementary school was basically empty, until one day when picking him up I noticed that the library was filled with books. I asked his after-school teacher about the boxes and she told me that they were books donated by Reader to Reader. At the time, I thought that was really nice of them and thought nothing about who it really was that gave those books.

In college, I learned about a work-study job that pays you to read books with students and be around books. I was so excited to hear about this program that I applied, though it was after the application deadline. After being in the program for a while, I was still trying to figure out why the name of the program sounded familiar, and then one day I remembered and realized I was working for Reader to Reader --the same company that helped my brother’s school. Recently, I talked to Dennis at Reader to Reader about my high school and how they help their students get on the right reading level, but sadly do not have many books for those who are on the right reading level. I asked if Reader to Reader could send books to my school too. Now, working at Reader to Reader, I’m helping the school I graduated from. Two boxes of books are headed out next week!”