New York, Boston, San Francisco and Los Angeles are going head-to-head in a literary competition that would grant the winning city 100,000 free books for its kids and an instant digital children's book with every vote. The 7th annual Soar with Reading campaign, a collaboration between JetBlue Airways and Random House Children’s Books, is fielding votes on soarwithreading.com and as of Wednesday morning, Boston is leading New York for the top spot by only 3.9 percent—let's beat 'em!
The campaign was created in 2011 as a way of getting more books into the hands of kids living in underserved communities who might not have easy access to public libraries. JetBlue has since donated $2.7 million worth of books to kids around the country and installed vending machines that dispense new, free books. Parents can also sign up for an SMS campaign to receive reading times, updates on vending machine selections and special guest readers appearing at the machines.
The next winner of the Soar with Reading campaign will be announced in September, so get those votes in by choosing New York on soarwithreading.com/book-battle before August 31 if you want NYC kids to run away with awesome new reads for free next year. Anyone who casts a vote will receive a 99 cent digital book from Penguin Random House and once a winning city has been selected, JetBlue will work with local community partners and government officials to determine where "book deserts" exist and the best places to distribute children’s books in the summer of 2018. They’ll also determine if book vending machines will be a part of the 2018 program, which—fingers crossed—we hope they are, because free unlimited reads (for kids and adults) via vending machine sounds pretty awesome.
While we wait on the announcement of this round's grand winner, check out the best story time events for children or our list of the best kids' books of all time and head to any of the best book stores in NYC for kids.