Penguin Random House is teaming up with HeadCount, a nonpartisan voter registration organization, to launch Book the Vote, a companywide effort to encourage voter registration. As part of Book the Vote, PRH will provide bookstores with the tools they need to create their own displays, community nights, and other voter registration initiatives. The PRH effort will kick off on National Voter Registration Day, which is organized by HeadCount on September 25 and which focuses on registering voters at concerts, music festivals, and other cultural events.
According to PRH, the Book the Vote registration drive was spurred by the forthcoming publication of Glimmer of Hope: How Tragedy Sparked a Movement, due out from Razorbill and Dutton Adult in October. The book was written by the students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., where a gunman killed 17 people in February. The Parkland students are also among the organizers of March for Our Lives, a national student movement to stop gun violence, and recently finished Road to Change, a national voter registration drive, dedicated to registering young voters in 50 states.
The Book the Vote registration drives will be staffed by HeadCount and will be held at events with such PRH authors as Chip Conley, Hank Green, John Green, Deborah Harkness, Marie Lu, DeRay Mckesson, Brad Meltzer, Jodi Picoult, Ransom Riggs, and Jacqueline Woodson. In addition to holding events at bookstores, Book the Vote will conduct registration drives at venues ranging from 1,200-seat theaters to public libraries and schools.
PRH CEO Madeline McIntosh said it established Book the Vote “to encourage every citizen to vote and to highlight how essential this civic duty is to our democracy and, of course, to free expression, which is the foundation for book publishing.”
