(JTA) — The PJ Library has expanded its program of gifting books with Jewish themes to young Jewish children to include tweens.
PJ Our Way, sponsored by the Harold Grinspoon Foundation, will send free Jewish children’s books in English to children ages 9-11. Program participants can select one of four books every month, giving them some choice in what they read. Some 10,000 tweens are already participating in the program, which launched as a pilot in several cities, the Foundation said in a statement.
The PJ Our Way website allows participants to choose books, have their own profile page and bookshelf, post reviews, take quizzes and polls, view and create book trailers, and comment on blog posts.
“We’ve thought a great deal about how to engage older readers by giving them more say in what they read and then giving them creative platforms to talk to their peers about the books,” said PJ Our Way Director Catriella Freedman.
PJ Library, which has been operating for more than a decade, sends books to more than 150,000 children in North America each month. The Massachusetts-based Harold Grinspoon Foundation operates book programs that reach more than 500,000 children worldwide in five languages, including Hebrew (Sifriyat Pijama), Spanish and Russian.
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