Press Release: City’s First Readers and RISE x Penguin Workshop Celebrate Community with a Fall Reading Festival at the Brooklyn Children’s Museum

On Friday, October 10, families from the five boroughs celebrated community during City’s First Readers (CFR) and RISE x Penguin Workshop’s Fall Reading Festival at the Brooklyn Children’s Museum. 132 families from across New York City participated in this free, fun, and unique collaboration in honor of RISE’s 5th birthday. Featuring 15 passionate children’s book authors and illustrators from Penguin’s imprint RISE, the joyful festival included author-led read-alouds and related hands-on activities such as ‘First Conversations” series author Jessica Ralli and illustrator Isabel Roxas leading youngsters in a portrait activity; Kari Percival inviting kids to greet, hold, and observe worms at her station as a nod to her book HOW TO SAY HELLO TO A WORM; parachute play with Rachel Payne, author of LET’S RUMBLE; and a sing- and dance-along led by Dan Saks, author of FAMILIES BELONG, among others. 

These creative and interactive events took place in the museum’s auditorium, theatre, and on the museum’s lovely rooftop terrace throughout a crisp, golden day where families were invited to participate in a scavenger hunt, make their own books, and enjoy a tasty lunch. Bright orange backpacks filled with RISE books, literacy tips, and resources to support educational activities at home were distributed as families departed. The festival was an extraordinary opportunity for families to interact face-to-face with authors and illustrators, and take home signed copies of their books.

The day’s activities were geared to ages 0-5, the time when 90% of a child’s brain develops. RISE x Penguin Workshop’s groundbreaking books nurture the social-emotional and cognitive skills that are crucial at this age. Specially designed to inspire confidence, resilience, and empathy, and to make children feel smart, capable, safe, and loved, RISE books develop both the academic readiness and emotional awareness that are necessary for children to succeed in school and beyond. Early literacy activities are crucial to developing these important skills as well as setting kids on a path to becoming stable, confident, curious, and compassionate adults with a lifelong love of reading.

The complete list of participating RISE creators included:

• Gabrielle Balkan - What a Map Can Do

• MeiLin Chan - whose book is upcoming

• Kat Chen & Lorraine Nam - Play with Me / Play Outside with Me / Play Games with Me

• Delphine Lee - whose book is upcoming

• Ammi-Joan Paquette - My Hands Can / My Feet Go / My Mouth Says 

• Rachel Payne - Let's Rumble: A Rough-and-Tumble Book of Play

• Kari Percival - How to Say Hello to a Worm: A First Guide to Outside

• Jessica Ralli & Isabel Roxas - OUR SKIN: A First Conversation about Race

• Dan Saks - Families Belong / We Share this Earth

• Joshua David Stein & Dominique Ramsey - Solitary Animals 

• Suzy Ultman - I Like Your Chutzpah / Shabbat Shalom / It’s a Mitzvah 

• Yoojin Grace Wuertz - whose book is upcoming

In addition to all of the fun literacy activities, families were given the opportunity to engage with community based organizations like the New York City Department of Youth & Community Development (DYCD), the Brooklyn Book Bodega, and Fidelis Care to learn more about the key resources they offer. We are indebted to all of our wonderful volunteers from Penguin Random House, CFR partner organizations, LINC, and Deloitte that made the day a success. 

Thank you to our sponsors Fidelis Care and Ponce Bank, and to our partners at the Brooklyn Children's Museum and RISE x Penguin Workshop for enabling us to create this magical event.

About City’s First Readers (CFR): Established by the New York City Council in 2014, City’s First Readers is an initiative in collaboration with 17 nonprofit organizations and coordinated by Literacy in Community (LINC), fostering the literacy development of children birth through five. The initiative was started to address the literacy crisis in New York City by building a coalition with the capacity to build an equitable city where children start school ready to read. To learn more about CFR, please visit www.citysfirstreaders.com. 

To learn more about CFR, please visit www.citysfirstreaders.com or contact Emmanuel Novy, Chief of Strategic Initiatives at enovy@lincnyc.org, 817-360-7075.

Penguin Young Readers is one of the leading children's book publishers in the United States. The company owns a wide range of imprints and trademarks, including Dial Books, Dutton, Flamingo, Kokila, Nancy Paulsen Books, Penguin Workshop, Philomel, Puffin, G. P. Putnam’s Sons, Rise x Penguin Workshop, Rocky Pond Books, Viking, and Frederick Warne. These imprints are home to such award-winning, New York Times- bestselling authors as Laurie Halse Anderson, Max Brallier, Jan Brett, Eric Carle, Roald Dahl, Julia Donaldson, John Flanagan, Amanda Gorman, John Green, S. E. Hinton, Oliver Jeffers, Brad Meltzer, Ransom Riggs, Ruta Sepetys, Sabaa Tahir, Jacqueline Woodson, and dozens of other popular authors. Penguin Young Readers is also the proud publisher of perennial brand franchises such as Bluey, Corduroy, Dragons Love Tacos, Llama Llama, Peter Rabbit, the Classic Winnie the Pooh, the Very Hungry Caterpillar, Madeline, Mad Libs, the Last Kids on Earth, the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys series, Spot, and Who HQ among many others. Penguin Young Readers is a division of Penguin Random House LLC.

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For media inquiries regarding this event, please contact: Virginia Taddoni, Associate Director of Communications, Literacy in Community (LINC) at vtaddoni@lincnyc.org or 212-620-5462, Ext. 133.