Having books in the home is important to a child’s academic success. There is a much higher probability a child will grow up reading when they are read to by both parents, and even more so when they see their parents reading for pleasure. 
For families struggling economically, books can be expensive. Starting in January, Scholastic will donate up to a million books to children. Visit YouAreWhatYouRead.com and create a “Bookprint” – a list of the “five books that have shaped your life.” For each Bookprint created, Scholastic will donate a book to the literacy nonprofit Reach Out and Read to help provide books to children in need.
YouAreWhatYouRead.com is a book-oriented social media site. Readers can connect with other readers, including some celebrities like President Clinton and Taylor Swift.
Be mindful, however, that Scholastic wants a million people to sign up using social media accounts like Twitter, Facebook, etc. When you sign in with Facebook, for example, Scholastic gains access to your contact information as well as your Facebook friends’ contact information.
Another book-sharing social media site, Goodreads.com, has 6.5 million members who share their love of books. And of course, Goodreads.com wants to entice you to buy stuff also, but not through the storehouse of personal information Facebook has on most of us.
Hi Karen,
I work for Scholastic and helped create YouAreWhatYouRead.com. I’m so glad that you are sharing the site and the book donation campaign “One Million Bookprints for One Million Books” with your readers! We are thrilled that this campaign is underway and just in time to put books into the hands of kids in need this holiday season.
After reading your blog post, I want to ensure you and your readers that visitors to the site do not need to sign in with a social media account. Users can choose to sign in either with a Scholastic.com account (or create a Scholastic.com account) or a social media account. All information is protected and never shared with third parties. You can edit your profile information or delete your account at any time. It’s entirely up to the user how she wants to sign in.
In addition, many of your readers may want to use the site with their children. For that purpose, we have an age-appropriate You Are What You Read community for kids on Scholastic.com with books tailored to their interests: http://youarewhatyouread.scholastic.com/kids. We’ve had great feedback from educators who use the site with their students and the American Association of School Librarians has honored the site with a Best Web Site for Teaching & Learning award.
Again, thank you for sharing this campaign with your readers and for engaging families around the importance of reading and giving.
-Ivy
Scholastic Inc.
Thank you for clarifying this and good luck with the campaign!