From award-winning fiction, poetry, memoir, and biography to new books about science, technology, history, student success, the environment, public health, and current events, the titles presented include program mainstays as well as new titles from emerging authors that look at contemporary topics and issues facing young people today.
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An initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts, NEA Big Read annually supports approximately 75 dynamic community reading programs. Each community program that receives an NEA Big Read grant is also provided with resources, outreach materials, and training.
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Are you interested in bringing your entire school community together for a shared literacy event? If your answer is “YES!,” an all-school reading program— appropriate for K-12 levels—is an exciting and engaging experience to consider. Download the How to Start an All-School Reading Program Resource to get started.
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With the fall semester in full swing, colleges and universities around the country have announced their Common Reading books for the upcoming 2024-25 academic year. We’ve compiled a list of over 340 programs and their title selections from publicly available sources, which you can download here: First-Year Reading 2024-25. We will continue to update this
Read moreWe are delighted to present our new First-Year & Common Reading Catalog for 2025! From award-winning fiction, poetry, memoir, and biography to new books about science, technology, history, student success, the environment, public health, and current events, the titles presented in our common reading catalog will have students not only eagerly flipping through the pages,
Read morePRH Education/Common Reads presents: unCommon Authors unCommon Authors is a monthly video series highlighting exceptional and unique authors talking about their books. Banning Lyon was an average 15-year-old, living in Dallas, TX. He enjoyed skateboarding, listening to punk rock, and even had a part-time job. But in January 1987 his life quickly changed after a
Read moreThrough the “revelatory and gut-wrenching” (Associated Press) stories of five Atlanta families, this landmark work of journalism exposes a new and troubling trend—the dramatic rise of the working homeless in cities across America. 1 Britt scrutinized her face in the bathroom mirror, hoping she looked less tired than she felt. Sleep had been hard
Read moreCarbon is the only element that animates the entirety of the living world. Though comprising a tiny fraction of Earth’s composition, our planet is lifeless without it. Yet it is maligned as the driver of climate change, scorned as an errant element blamed for the possible demise of civilization. Here, Paul Hawken looks at the flow
Read moreOn March 31, 2025, the Penguin Random House First-Year Reading Advisory Board convened for their annual summit. The Board Members, representing a variety of public and private higher education institutions of varying sizes and geographic regions, came together to exchange ideas, discuss the complexity of the current common reading landscape, and provide feedback. The Advisory
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