Read for the Record, an annual celebration of reading and learning, highlights the need for high-quality early education in America by bringing young people and adults together to set a new world record for the most children reading the same book on the same day.
This year, record-breakers will be reading Penguin’s Ladybug Girl and the Bug Squad, by David Soman and Jacky Davis, which has been selected as the official book of Jumpstart’s Read for the Record campaign in 2012.
For the first time this year, Jumpstart’s Read for the Record will take place over a full week — September 27 through to the record-setting day on October 4 — giving record breakers across the country even more opportunity to read and to support Jumpstart’s mission to work toward the day every child in America enters school prepared to succeed. Again this year, record breakers will also be able to take part by reading the book for free at We Give Books (http://wegivebooks.org), the free digital reading initiative created by Penguin and the Pearson Foundation.
Last year on October 6, 2011, Read for the Record engaged a record-breaking 2,185,155 people, who read Llama Llama Red Pajama by Anna Dewdney in homes, schools, libraries, community centers, and online. In conjunction with the 2011 campaign, We Give Books also donated more than 200,000 copies of this wonderful book to young people so that they could easily take part in the record-breaking day.
Click here to learn more about the event and how you can get involved!