Penguin Random House partnered with Little Free Library® (LFL) to celebrate the installation of their 200,000th book-sharing box worldwide.
To mark this milestone, LFL granted 200 Little Free Libraries to Title I elementary schools across the United States. Penguin Random House donated 40,000 diverse children’s books—200 for each library—to help ensure students have access to stories that reflect a range of experiences and identities.
As a longtime partner, we are honored to support Little Free Library’s mission. Together, we are bringing books directly into neighborhoods and schools across the globe, where they can spark curiosity, connection, and a lifelong love of reading.
Penguin Random House views sustainability as a core responsibility aligned with our mission to create books for everyone. As a part of this responsibility, we are committed to ensuring our company’s compliance with the EUDR by December 30, 2025.
To support this effort, we are working closely with our suppliers to ensure full compliance across our supply chain and have partnered with osapiens to enhance and streamline our due diligence process. Understanding the importance of compliance for our clients and customers, we are updating our systems and processes to ensure our products meet the high environmental standards of the regulation, including full traceability of paper sources.
Sustainability is central to our values. Through responsible sourcing and transparency, Penguin Random House aims to contribute to a more sustainable and deforestation-free future for the publishing industry.
Penguin Random House marked the 10th anniversary of our meaningful partnership with Save the Children via a special Giving Tuesday campaign in 2024. Over the past decade, we have worked together to improve the lives of countless children around the world, providing them with the resources and support they need to thrive.
Through December 10, we offered a special matching program for Penguin Random House U.S. employees, matching donations made to Save the Children’s Make Childhood Fair Fund, up to $10,000. This fund supports early education and literacy programs in rural communities throughout the U.S. During the same period, each book purchased through penguinrandomhouse.com resulted in a $1 donation to Save the Children, up to a total of $10,000.
In the face of educational disruptions following the pandemic and the mounting book banning crisis, Penguin Random House announced an unprecedented book donation to long-standing partner Save the Children to help spread the joy of reading to kids everywhere. The historic donation is the largest global book donation in Save the Children’s history and will provide more than one million books to children across the globe over three years.
According to UNESCO, 244 million children did not attend school in 2022—and by 2030, the organization predicts that 20% of young people and 30% of adults will be unable to read. Penguin Random House’s partnership with Save the Children helps combat this global education crisis by providing age-appropriate books that support kids’ literacy skill development and ensure they have opportunities to learn both inside their schools and within their communities.
From accelerated learning for out-of-school children to school-based reading clubs run by trained volunteers, Save the Children programs that have been or will be supported by Penguin Random House’s book donation so far include:
- ‘Early Steps to School Success’, which provides early childhood development services to children ages 0-5 and their families in under-resourced communities, and Head Start programs across rural America
- Indigenous-led literacy initiatives in communities across Canada
- Safe spaces where children and families participate in educational activities, play games and receive support for physical or mental health concerns in Jiangna Township, China
- Elementary schools in four regions of Germany, including Berlin and Brandenburg
- Inclusive learning environments in India, including, but not limited to, school libraries, district education and training facilities, mobile learning centers and evening education support centers for young adults
- Early childhood centers in Mexico City
- Early childhood development centers in a South African province damaged by severe flooding in 2022
- Primary schools within low income-communities across the U.K., including England and Wales, as well as in partnership with a local book project in rural Scotland
To learn more about the partnership, click here.
To celebrate International Literacy Day, we teamed up again with our longstanding partner, Worldreader, to help promote literacy and the joy of reading around the world. With every book purchased on our website, we donated $1 to Worldreader, up to $10K.
Reading is the foundation of all learning, yet millions of children around the world lack basic literacy skills – and their communities lack the support they need to help them. The pandemic has only exacerbated disparities when it comes to access to reading materials and resources.
Worldreader works to champion digital reading in under-resourced communities. Working with partners globally, the nonprofit provides the tools, training, and resources communities need to help children experience the love of reading anytime, anywhere while developing foundational literacy and life skills. Since 2010, Worldreader has reached over 20 million readers in more than 100 countries.
Over the years, we have donated hundreds of thousands of e-books to Worldreader to help millions of children read around the world. We are committed to advancing literacy, especially in communities where there are not many books and resources available. Together, Penguin Random House and Worldreader help create a world where everyone is a reader.
In these pictures, children and their families bond over reading in Peru and Kenya, learning and growing together while they explore the Worldreader library at their fingertips.
