First Book Blog

How to Host Your Own Backpack Build: 10 Tips and Tricks

Posted in: Focus on First Book, Our Partners

A “backpack build” is a great event to engage any group of volunteers who want to make a difference for children in need. At a backpack build, volunteers fill backpacks with books, school supplies, and other learning essentials. The bags are then delivered to kids who need them most! Hosting... Read more

First Book Launches Final Funding Phase of $4.7 Million OMG Books Awards

Posted in: Press Room

Read more

Educator Resource: The First Book Trauma Toolkit

Posted in: First Book Research & Insights, For Educators

We want all students to be happy, healthy, and prepared to reach their highest potential. These aspirations are most often possible when children have environments that provide safety, support, love, and nurturing. Unfortunately, this is far from reality for almost half of the children in the United States – about... Read more

Foundation for Appalachian Ohio and First Book Launch Partnership to Get Books to Kids in Need

Posted in: Press Room

Educators and other individuals serving children in under-resourced communities can register with First Book and FAO to access free and low-cost books, as well as other resources such as basic needs items. Read more

Brave Journeys: Beyond Accents and Silences

Posted in: Our Bookshelf, Our Partners

Today’s blog is a guest post, by Natalia Chamorro, Stony Brook University PhD candidate in Hispanic Languages and Literature and a Regional Economic Development Council/New York State Council on the Arts Fellow for Herstory Writers Workshop, the publishers of “Brave Journeys/Pasos Valientes” – a book that tells the stories of... Read more

“Voces Sin Fronteras”: Coming to a New Home

Posted in: Our Partners

Today’s blog is a guest post, originally posted on the WRAG Journalism Fellows program blog and reposted with permission from our publishing partner, Shout Mouse Press. The writer is an author of “Voces Sin Fronteras: Our Stories, Our Truth,” a graphic memoir collection by teen immigrants of the Latin American... Read more

Chicago Bears’ Kyle Long, in Partnership With First Book, to Bring More Than 12,000 New Books to Chicago Kids

Posted in: Press Room

Read more

The Stars of the SHOWTIME Drama ‘The Chi’ and Author Jason Reynolds Visit Chicago with First Book

Posted in: Our Partners

We are proud to have taken part in one of the many ways SHOWTIME® gives back to the city that serves as the setting of their hit television show, “The Chi”. Through First Book, SHOWTIME® gifted approximately 10,000 new, contemporary, diverse books to public schools in Chicago’s South Side area.... Read more

Promoting Respect & Empathy: A Toolkit for Educators, by Educators

Posted in: For Educators

Teaching kids empathy and respect prepares them to create a more caring and compassionate world. In the absence of empathy, differences have the potential to breed conflict – especially during a child’s early years, when they are naturally inclined to think only of themselves and their immediate needs. Members of... Read more

Shout Mouse Press: There’s a Story Behind Every Book

Posted in: Our Bookshelf, Our Partners

Today’s blog is a guest post written by Lana Wong, Community Impact & Partnerships Director at Shout Mouse Press If children don’t read about people who look like them … they feel invisible. I feel this is an opportunity for them to see that they’re visible and their voice does... Read more