Kids Need to Read works to create a culture of reading for children by providing inspiring books to underfunded schools, libraries, and literacy programs across the United States, especially those serving disadvantaged children.

Kids Need to Read is a national nonprofit charity focusing on promoting childhood literacy and addressing the crisis in library funding that currently exists in the United States. Donating exciting, new books to schools, public libraries, juvenile offender facilities, and urban after school programs, the foundation works to develop a lifelong love of reading and an awareness of social responsibility in all children.


The highly praised Kids Need to Read book donation list features the best of contemporary reading material to appeal to the sensibilities of today's youth, including the most reluctant of readers. Whether it is giving free comics and Highlights magazines to homeless children or providing the first books to a charter school with no library, Kids Need to Read focuses on one goal – getting kids to pick up something to read and never wanting to stop.

The books arrived on Friday, thank you! My students are devouring them already — I thought you’d like to hear this quote from one of my most reluctant readers, who is reading one of the Actionopolis books: “Dude! I’m reading for the first time in my life!”

Ann Brennan, Seventh and Eighth Grade Teacher,
Potter Junior High School, Fallbrook, California

Read More Testimonials...

Dialogues, Parts 2 and 3 are available in our Gallery.

  
from our Kids Need to Read founders:

PJ Haarsma:

When I first traveled across North America to promote The Softwire, my initial excitement quickly turned to dismay when I witnessed the lack of book funds available to schools and libraries. Children would follow me into the parking lot after my presentation, begging for a book they couldn't afford while teachers and librarians scrambled to find funds for even a single copy. I came across many a teacher who took the money out of his/her own pocket just so the kids could have the book in their library.

It was this disturbing trend that prompted me to establish the Kids Need to Read project as a way to fight back. It is our dream to fill library shelves with great books so that no child lacks for amazing stories to inspire their imaginations.

  

Nathan Fillion:

Growing up, my parents managed to show me the importance of reading without cramming it down my throat. A difficult task, I’m sure. It breaks my heart to think that there are kids out there, ready to have their imaginations lit on fire, excited and wanting to read, and facing naked shelves in their school or local libraries. Rather than complain or wait till the system stops failing our nation’s children, this is a matter I feel we must take into our own hands. There are children, right now, waiting – wanting to read. What shall we tell them?

I support Kids Need To Read, because it fosters a desire to learn, the process of self-improvement, and the chance for children’s minds to grow. What will you do?

Denise Gary:

Kids Need to Read is about the power reading has to transform a life that might otherwise be lost. We are driven to make a difference in the lives of children, especially impoverished children. If one has never known poverty, it is difficult to comprehend the severity of its oppressive, dispiriting nature. Culture and literature often become lost to survival. For this reason, Kids Need to Read ensures that our books not only light the way to literacy, but empower children with awareness of a path to a different life – a better life.

Because Kids Need to Read serves children of all ages, we are in the unique position of extending our literacy program to middle readers and young adults, who are often overlooked by literacy organizations. There is an overwhelming need for literacy intervention among juvenile offenders, urban teenagers, and youth faced with learning challenges. These demographic groups experience extremely elevated dropout rates due to illiteracy. Kids Need to Read embraces these children with the knowledge that they are a vital part of the world we all share.

Passion to make a difference is a fire that burns from within, and there is no controlling it. This is the spark that ignites all of us at Kids Need to Read to inspire literacy and social responsibility in the children of our nation.