Penguin Random House has launched #ProjectReadathon Million Minutes, a campaign aimed at encouraging children to read in communities throughout North America. The effort will be executed in partnership with the Save the Children organization.
During the week leading up to UNESCO’s World Book and Copyright Day (and the U.K.'s World Book Night) on April 23, all readers visiting a specially-created reading platform, ReadWell.PenguinRandomHouse.com, will be allowed to read free excerpts from Penguin Random House books and authors.
Time spent on each page will be timed, and the number of minutes participants devote to reading the excerpts will, according to the publisher, trigger donations of up to 300,000 of books to children in need in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico.
The more participants read, the bigger a contribution they can make to the campaign; reading a 20-minute excerpt, for instance, precipitates a donation of five books, while an hour spent reading unlocks a donation of 20 books from Penguin Random House to Save the Children. Additional partners for the campaign include Charity Miles and Tab for a Cause.
