On February 19, 2020, we celebrated the inaugural I Read Canadian Day. A national campaign spearheaded by children’s author Eric Walters, many of whose books we proudly publish, I Read Canadian Day is dedicated to reading and promoting Canadian literature across the country. The campaign started in the children’s book world and quickly expanded to include Canadian books for readers of all ages, and we also participated, along with a number of our authors and accounts. Staff shared favorite Canadian-authored books on corporate social media channels and appeared on CTV’s Your Morning, a national breakfast television program, to share Canadian “readalike” recommendations for kids. To learn more about I Read Canadian Day, click here and here.
Commitments: Free Expression & Joy of Reading
Book Donations for Housewarming Care Kits
We contributed 5,000 books to housewarming care packages distributed to thirty groups that support women’s shelters across Canada by First Book Canada. Thousands of women and their kids received the gift of a book to read together and some soothing skin care products as they began the transition to a new life via the shelter system. To learn more about the housewarming kit initiative, please click here and here.
A Canadian Welcome for Michelle Obama
As part of Michelle Obama’s four-city Canadian tour for her best-selling memoir, Becoming, we provided 40 local community groups with 400 complimentary tickets to distribute to their members. In Toronto, members of A Room of Your Own Book Club were able to meet Mrs. Obama in person and receive copies of Becoming. We also provided 25 tickets to Alberta librarians to attend Mrs. Obama’s Edmonton event. To learn more about her book club meet-and-greet, click here.
One Million Books Donated in the Obama Family’s Name
We are proud to have donated one million of our children’s books in the Obama family’s name to First Book, our longtime partner dedicated to providing books to programs and schools in low-income communities. Plans for the one-million-book donation were originally announced in 2017 when Penguin Random House acquired world publication rights to publish books by President and Mrs. Obama. In 2019, in celebration of Giving Tuesday and our publishing partnership with the Obamas, we increased our giving with an additional donation to First Book. The special Hope Love Give campaign paid homage to the themes of hope, love, and generosity in the beloved Penguin children’s classic Corduroy, and we matched donations from Giving Tuesday to the end of the year, altogether donating an additional 300,000 children’s books while inviting readers to participate in helping us fulfill the book wishes of underprivileged kids across the country. To learn more, click here and here.