National Readathon Day will take place this January

Groups including the publisher Penguin Random House and the National Book Foundation encourage bibliophiles to read between 12 and 4 p.m. on Jan. 24 and to raise money for the event.

|
Robert Harbison
Teacher Casondra Johnson (l.) reads to her kindergarten class at Daniel Webster Elementary School in Pasadena, Calif.

Do you and your friends like to sit down and read together? Publisher Penguin Random House wants you to do that on Jan. 24 next year.

Penguin Random House is teaming up with the National Book Foundation and the websites Goodreads and Mashable to launch a National Readathon Day on Jan. 24. Participants are asked to read between 12 and 4 p.m. that day and to raise funds to support the National Book Foundation.

“Each year, millions of Americans – especially our youth – are losing touch with the power and importance of reading books,” the website reads. “Help change lives this winter.”

On the event’s website, organizers suggest libraries, schools, bookstores, or other venues head up reading parties.

For the fundraising, participants can gather money on their own or form a team. 

Check out the website for the Readathon here.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to National Readathon Day will take place this January
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Books/chapter-and-verse/2014/1114/National-Readathon-Day-will-take-place-this-January
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe