Scholastic Media Room

While Americans everywhere were tightening their belts this holiday season, the numbers show families turned to Scholastic Book Clubs to give the gift of reading.

The only place busier might have been the North Pole! 

This holiday season, students in 250,000 classrooms across the country got a first-hand lesson in the power of giving.

They helped send 1 million books to kids in need just by reading themselves. Every year, classrooms participating in ClassroomsCare meet the challenge of reading 100 books, and, in turn, Scholastic Book Clubs donates more than 1 million books to kids in need through charities, such as Save the Children, Reach Out and Read and First Book. And while the students complete the challenge, they learn the value of reading and are empowered to help kids who aren’t lucky enough to have books of their own.

What better lesson to remember during the holidays?

Scholastic.com – which has tremendous traffic for its teachers resource site – is now a must-visit for parents and kids as well: during September and October, page views increased 70% among parents and a whopping 180% on The Stacks, the kids’ community on Scholastic.com. Overall, the entire Scholastic.com site has experienced a huge traffic jump this fall – including a 14 percent growth in page views and attracting 6.4 million visitors in October alone. The teacher site has grown as well with a 40 percent jump in page views in September and October. Scholastic.com also has been ranked #1 by Nielsen Online as the most visited site among “power moms” – parents 25-34, who are twice as likely as the average Internet user to share advice on parenting topics and are 25% more likely to author a blog.

So where is everyone going on the site? Parents are visiting the newly designed content areas on Scholastic.com/parents and the Parent Activity Center. Kids are swarming to The Stacks to connect over a shared love of reading. And teachers are attracted to brand new tools and resources including Scholastic Book Clubs Ordering Online (COOL), Teacher Book Wizard&trade' and Printables™.

What’s next for Scholastic.com? This month, Scholastic is launching in Beta an enhanced platform for COOL, Scholastic Book Clubs’ online ordering system. Currently, COOL, which streamlines the ordering process online for both teachers and parents, handles more than 50 percent of Scholastic’s 10 to 20 million monthly U.S. school book club orders.

Times are tough for students – and parents – trying to figure out how to pay for college. Scholarships are still available for athletes and honor students, but what about the teenager who would rather pick up a paintbrush than a basketball? Or the brilliant writer who won’t get above a C in Chemistry?

Every year The Scholastic Art & Writing Awards helps creative teens get money for college, with $3.9 million in scholarships available to top award-winners.

Like Ebony Robinson. When in high school, Ebony’s fast food job helped support her family and there was little money left over for art supplies let alone for college. After Ebony won a $10,000 “Portfolio Gold Award” in 2007 (only 12 teenagers receive the honor annually), she received additional scholarships through the Allliance for Young Artists & Writers college network.

Because of the Award recognition, Ebony is now attending the Maryland Institute College of Art on a full four year scholarship.

Creative seniors who are filling out college applications now should be sure to get their work into The Alliance for Young Artists & Writers, the nonprofit that administers the awards. The Alliance is accepting submissions from students in grades 7-12.

WordGirl® will be trying to demonstrate her own "electability" on Nov. 4 in a special Election Day episode of her Emmy-winning show produced by Scholastic Media and seen on PBS Kids Go!.

Becky Botsford, WordGirl’s non-superhero identity, is running for class president, and judging by this episode trailer, she’s in for a knock-down, drag-out fight to win the hearts and minds of her classmates. Along the way, WordGirl will be teaching kids everywhere about the words “campaign” and “election,” and inspiring them to become informed voters when they grow up.

So, on Election Day, remember: Vote for Becky!

P.S. WordGirl’s getting a lot of love out there in the blogosphere these days. These girls might just be WordGirl’s two biggest fans! And here’s a teaser for the election episode from the folks at On Our Minds @ Scholastic.

"We got the book yesterday and [my son] couldn't put it down. He read the first 40 pages on the way home from [the bookstore] and then I had to pry it out of his hands and demand that he go to sleep last night!"
- Denise, mother of 9 year old boy

Kids everywhere are raving about The 39 Clues! The highly anticipated multimedia series celebrated its global launch on Tuesday, September 9, 2008.
Students at special launch celebrations at Scholastic Book Fairs in Philadelphia, Chicago, Miami, Atlanta, Dallas, San Francisco, and Los Angeles were first in line to check out the online game at www.the39clues.com and read the first book: The 39 Clues: The Maze of Bones by Rick Riordan. Students also participated in school-wide The 39 Clues games, activities, and a raffle for a chance to win a The 39 Clues t-shirt, backpack, and even a copy of the book signed by the author!

WCAU in Philadelphia stopped by Ferguson Elementary in Philadelphia for a live broadcast of the festivities.

Rick Riordan recently sat down with The Today Show's Ann Curry to talk about the series. You can watch the video at: http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/26563385/.

Book two is out in early December. More fun and info to come!

The days after Hurricane Ike struck the Texas coast have brought incredible stress and grief to the thousands of people living in shelters across the state. In response, Scholastic has donated more than 3,200 My Time “comfort kits,” filled with books, magazines, crayons and journals to help children and families cope with the difficult times and express how they feel. With the help of Save the Children, the kits, along with 1,000 books, were distributed to children living in shelters.

The components of the My Time kits were carefully chosen by early childhood development and mental health experts to help kids cope in times of distress. More than 20,000 were sent to the Gulf Coast in the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

There’s Harry Potter news galore this summer, and the Daily Prophet isn’t the only one who’s got the scoop. In case you missed it, here’s a taste of what’s been bubbling up in Scholastic’s (leaky) cauldron:

Marking the 10th anniversary of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, Scholastic on Sept. 23rd is releasing a special anniversary edition of the first Potter tale and a celebrating with a day-long muggle read-a-thon called Harry Potter Cover to Cover Day at Scholastic headquarters in New York.

Muggles will line up outside Scholastic’s headquarters in New York City and get the chance to sit in J.K. Rowling’s throne and read a passage from from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. Fans will read Harry Potter "cover to cover" that day, and we’ll broadcast it live on the Web. Find out more here.

This summer, Scholastic also announced J.K. Rowling’s publication of The Tales of Beedle the Bard, a collection of wizarding fairy tales referenced in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. From every sale of this book, Scholastic will give its net proceeds to the Children’s High Level Group, a charity co-founded in 2005 by J.K. Rowling and Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne, MEP. CHLG campaigns to protect and promote children's rights and make life better for vulnerable young people.

For the estimated 1 in 50 American children who have an incarcerated parent, separation can be painful – and it can also disrupt their social, emotional and learning development. But a program in place at several prisons around the country is keeping incarcerated parents connected with their children, and helping them so when they’re released they can better teach their kids the value of reading and literacy.

Words Travel is a six-session program created in 2002 by Scholastic and run by the non-profit Volunteers of America at jails and prisons for men and women in six states: New York, Ohio, Maine, Indiana and Washington and South Dakota (see recent news story here). Since its start in 2002, the Words Travel program has reached more than 1,500 incarcerated parents —both men and women— and more than 2,500 of their children.

At the weekly sessions, parents learn about various genres of children’s literature and practice skills to make the experience of reading to their children more engaging and educational. Then they record themselves reading stories, and the tapes are sent to their children, or given to them during visits to the jail. Kids also receive a tape player and other books, donated by Scholastic, so they can listen to the tapes and own books of their own.

High frequency Internet uses are almost twice as likely as lower frequency Internet users to read a book for fun every day,according to the 2008 Kids & Family Reading Report released June 11.

In an age when everyone’s bemoaning the loss of our kids’ minds to the Internet, this report shows the reality seems to be just the opposite. Almost two-thirds of kids are actually extending their reading experience online. And the best part is these numbers are generally higher for older kids (especially in Web 2.0 activities), who are reading less than younger kids.

Kids are not reading less because of the Internet (sites like Facebook and YouTube) .In fact, we’re finding quite the opposite.