NBF-Led Book Rich Environments Initiative Secures New Partners

The Book Rich Environments (BRE) initiative, now in its second year, aims to combat lack of literary access, often termed “book deserts,” by connecting communities with resources that help foster relationships between readers and books. The program works with HUD-assisted communities to strengthen home libraries, facilitate book distribution events, and provide the information and tools to establish long-term connections between families, libraries, and other literary resources. BRE, a collaboration between the National Book Foundation (which serves as lead partner) the U.S. Departments of Education and Housing and Urban Development (HUD), and the Urban Libraries Council, has added the National Center for Families Learning to its list of partners. 

This year, BRE has secured book contribution commitments from eight U.S. book publishers: Algonquin Books for Young Readers/Workman Publishing, Candlewick Press, Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins Publishers, Macmillan Publishers, Penguin Random House, Scholastic, and Simon & Schuster. These partners have collectively provided a total of 422,000 free and diverse books that will go to children and families in HUD-assisted communities. BRE programming will once again take place throughout the U.S. 37 sites across 19 states will participate, and two sites will be joining for the first time, one in Phenix City, Alabama, and the second in northern Minnesota, serving communities on three Anishinaabe reservations: Leech Lake, Red Lake, and White Earth.