The board of the National Book Foundation has awarded its fourth annual Innovations in Reading Prizes to five individuals and organizations for "demonstrating passion, creativity, dedication, and leadership in the service of creating and sustaining a lifelong love of reading."
The winners are: Bookends, a book-centric television program created by and for teens; Lilli Leight, a fifteen-year-old who established a “giving library” for the children at a homeless shelter, developed a system within her community to continually stock the library, and started a teen book club that gives her peers the opportunity to discusses books, meet authors, and volunteer at the homeless shelter; Literacy Chicago for Reading Against the Odds, a discussion group dedicated to enhancing the reading and critical thinking skills of diverse adult literacy learners by introducing them to intellectually challenging books, supplemented by cultural events; Street Books, a bicycle-powered mobile library that gives people who live outside the means to check out books and the opportunity to have conversations about literature; and Inger Upchurch for Real Men Read Storytime and Mentoring, a program in which African-American men volunteer to read books and act as positive role models and mentors to children between the ages of three and five enrolled in urban child care centers.
Each winner will receive $2,500, a framed certificate, and a trip to New York City to attend a special luncheon at the Ford Foundation, where they will present their work to funders, other people in the field, and reporters, as well as attend the National Book Awards Ceremony and Benefit Dinner at Cipriani Wall Street on November 14, 2012.
