The PRH First-Year Reading Board Convenes in San Antonio

On February 9, 2018, the Penguin Random House First-Year Reading Advisory Board convened for their annual summit the day before The First-Year Experience® Conference exhibit and sessions commenced. The Board members, representing a variety of public and private higher education institutions of varying sizes, came together to exchange ideas, and provide feedback and guidance. Our seven board members, along with staff

Read more

Videos from the 2018 First-Year Experience® Conference are now available

We’re pleased to share videos from the First-Year Experience® Conference held in San Antonio, TX this past February. If you weren’t able to join us for our author events at the conference, or would simply like to hear the talks again, please take a moment to view the clips below.   Penguin Random House Author

Read more

Five Key Terms to Understand the Shared Struggle for Black and Latinx Civil Rights: A Letter from Christian Coleman on Paul Ortiz’s New Book

The following letter was contributed by Christian Coleman, Digital Marketing Associate at Beacon Press.  We live in a time where a president makes barefaced remarks in speeches that African Americans and Latinx people are prone to violence and corruption. His statements, obviously, pay no respect to the centuries-long history of African Americans and Latinx people organizing together

Read more

10,000 New Social Housing Units – Thanks to Matthew Desmond’s EVICTED

Tom Barrett, Mayor of Milwaukee, read Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City, which tells the story of eight impoverished families in his city who are threatened with forced eviction. Influenced by this multi-award-winning book, Barrett is launching an ambitious housing project to build or renovate 10,000 housing units in Milwaukee over the next

Read more

WE ARE OKAY Wins the Michael L. Printz Award

Every January (or sometimes February), the ALA youth media awards are announced at the American Library Association’s Midwinter conference. Among those awards is the Michael L. Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature for YA books published in the previous calendar year. This year’s honorees included heavyweights such as Jason Reynolds’ Long Way Down and Angie

Read more

On a “Shared Reading Scheme,” by Dr. Alison Baverstock (Kingston University)

Did we steal or borrow the idea of common reading? A publisher and long-term believer in the power of the book to connect communities, it was at an academic conference in Boston in 2006 that I spotted a paper on the practice of ‘common reading’. What a great idea I thought, and I pondered long

Read more