Hachette Book Group (HBG) has launched a program to provide select school libraries across the country with a collection of books that provide resources to students to learn about the importance of anti-racism, empathy, and social justice.
These collections have been carefully curated for elementary and secondary school libraries and include such notable and bestselling titles as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s Becoming Kareem, Ijeoma Oluo’s So You Want to Talk About Race, Sharee Miller’s Princess Hair, Todd Parr’s Be Who You Are, Jason Reynolds and Ibram Kendi’s Stamped: Racism, Anti-Racism and You, Jewell Parker Rhodes’ Ghost Boys and Sugar, and Beverly Tatum’s Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria, among others.
HBG is donating 10,000 physical books and 20,000 ebooks and audiobooks on topics of race, anti-racism, equality, and identity, partnering with Follett for the physical book distribution and OverDrive Education for digital distribution. This outreach will connect with thousands of elementary, middle and high schools, with Follett providing 1,000 sets of 10 print books each to designated Title 1 schools and OverDrive Education fulfilling 20,000 ebooks and audiobooks to 2,000 school libraries across the country, for a total of 200,000 downloads (students can then read the ebook or audiobook in OverDrive Education’s student reading app, Sora).
Alison Lazarus, HBG’s EVP Group Sales Director, said, “We’re delighted to offer these remarkable and moving works of fiction and non-fiction to students who otherwise may not have had access to them. The books we’re providing to school libraries will enrich the conversation about racial equity and explore ideas that we know students are eager to engage in. We’re very pleased to be partnering with Follett and OverDrive Education to put these important books in students’ hands as schools resume this fall.”
About HBG | hachettebookgroup.com
Hachette Book Group is a leading trade publisher based in New York and a division of Hachette Livre (a Lagardère company), the third-largest trade and educational publisher in the world. HBG is made up of seven publishing groups: Little, Brown and Company; Little, Brown Books for Young Readers; Grand Central Publishing; Perseus Books; Orbit; Hachette Nashville; and Hachette Audio.
About OverDrive Education – a division of OverDrive
OverDrive Education is the leading digital reading platform for K-12 schools, offering the industry’s largest catalog of ebooks, audiobooks and streaming video. As a 100% digital company serving over 30,000 schools worldwide, OverDrive combines technology with content to support learning and reading in the K-12 classroom, library and home on all major devices. Sora, the student reading app, was named one of TIME’s Best Inventions of 2019. Founded in 1986, OverDrive – the leading digital reading platform for libraries and schools worldwide – and OverDrive Education are based in Cleveland, Ohio USA. OverDrive was acquired by funds affiliated with global investment firm KKR in 2020. company.overdrive.com/k-12-schools/
About Follett’s PreK-12 Business | follettearning.com
Follett is the largest provider of educational materials and technology solutions to PreK-12 libraries, classrooms, learning centers and school districts in the United States, and a major supplier to educational institutions worldwide. Follett distributes books, reference materials, digital resources, ebooks and audiovisual materials, as well as pre-owned textbooks. Follett also is one of the leading providers of integrated educational technology for the management of physical and digital assets, the tracking, storing and analyzing of academic data, and digital learning environment tools for the classroom focusing on student achievement. Find Follett on Facebook, and follow on Twitter (@FollettLearning).