BY: BOOKMANS

Last year, 25 TUSD schools participated in the first ever Bookmans Reading Challenge, and Schumaker Elementary claimed the grand prize for reading the most books. This February, Bookmans will be giving $5,000 to two schools in Tucson and Mesa.

The 2008 Bookmans Reading Challenge will officially kick off on Feb. 1st and we're excited to announce that this year's contest has expanded to include schools in both Tucson and Mesa. Once again we will be awarding the school with the highest average of books read per student with $5,000 in each city, for a grand total of $10,000 donated towards schools in our community.

The Challenge began with a simple concept: encourage children to read. Last year we challenged over 10,800 students in 25 Tucson Unified School District elementary schools to read as many books as they could from the beginning of February to the end of April.

Read about last year's Reading Challenge award ceremony, courtesy of Bookmans' own Jacob Harper.

When the final numbers rolled in on May 1st, we were overwhelmed to discover that students had read more than 100,000 books throughout the course of the Challenge. Schumaker Elementary School's 331 participating students read nearly 14,000 books alone, and their awesome numbers (highest average of books read per student) garnered them the grand prize of $5,000.

Experience the excitement as Schumaker Elementary learns they've won $5,000! Courtesy of KOLD.

Becky Riveras, Schumaker Elementary Teacher-Librarian, shares how the $5,000 helped improve the school's library:
"We were able to greatly improve our Non-Fiction and Biography sections in our library. The fourth and fifth graders used those books to write a report on a famous person from note cards, to an outline, to a finished paper. We also upgraded in some of technology areas in the library. We were able to get World Book On-Line, get adapters so that multiple headsets could be worn from each computer in the library, and we are still spending. We also bought many books that were "student recommended." I asked the students what they wanted, since after all they did most of the work. I took those suggestions and bought what they asked for. We still have about $1,500.00 and are planning to use it for more fiction books as well as to support some materials needed for our after school library club called "Project B.O.O.K."

Thanks to the Bookmans [Reading Challenge] opportunity our school library has been greatly improved. Thank you!"

See photos from last year's award ceremony in our Flickr Gallery.

Keep an eye on the Bookmans website for updates on the competition's progress.

For more information, please contact:
Jacob Harper, Bookmans Marketing Assistant
jacobh(at)bookmans.com or (520) 881-1744 x114