With the launch of an exciting new black book site called NorthParan.com, book buyers will be given a chance to do some good while doing some shopping.
For every book purchased on the site, NorthParan.com will donate a book to a black child in need. The site boasts the most comprehensive collection of black books and black authors ever compiled on the web.
Researchers have determined that a child who grows up in a home with at least 500 books will attain three more years of education than a student with no books in the home. But for millions of children in the United States and around the world, their access to age-appropriate books is limited or nonexistent.
Neil Nelson, the site’s co-founder, is driven by the memories of his childhood in Jamaica, when his family only had five books in the house that he and his sister had to share. But Nelson read those five books over and over, until he had all the words memorized. Now he wants to change this bleak picture for as many children as he can.
After starting DimeWars.com, a vastly successful celebrity news and video site that reached nearly 30 million unique visitors last year, Nelson partnered with husband-and-wife authors Nick Chiles and Denene Millner to create NorthParan.com, a cutting-edge site that hopes to promote black books and nourish black children.
Chiles and Millner have written or co-written 19 books between them. Millner is the co-author with Steve Harvey of the #1 New York Times bestseller “Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man,” which was the top-selling nonfiction book in the country in 2009, and the sequel “Straight Talk, No Chaser,” which has already reached #1 on the New York Times list. Chiles co-authored with gospel legend Kirk Franklin “The Blueprint,” which also was a New York Times bestseller last year. Millner and Chiles are both also award-winning journalists””Chiles won a 1993 Pulitzer Prize on the staff of New York Newsday“”and the parents of three children of their own.
To make the book donations, NorthParan.com has partnered with nonprofit organizations in the United States and abroad to find children who do not have access to new books.
In trying to make a difference in the lives of black children, NorthParan.com is banking on the buying power of the black community. If, for every book African Americans bought in 2009, a free book was given to a child in the black community, 4 free books could have been given to every black child under age 10 in America.
With the start of Black History Month, the site’s founders have set an ambitious goal: they would like to donate 100,000 books to black children during the month of February. Will you help? Head over to NorthParan.com and buy today!
Jp says
very cool
Cheryl says
Reading is so important, and the reading you do as a child changes how you view the world. I will commit to buying at least 10 books this year from this site. Thanks for providing this information.