On April 23rd (Shakespeare’s birthday), hundreds of thousands of lives were impacted as a record 29,000 volunteer givers distributed 580,000 books to light and non-readers on World Book Night. More than one-third of the books went to students and their families. Others were delivered to food banks and fitness centers, hospitals and homeless shelters, parks and prisons. Some givers creatively matched book themes to locations: Young Men and Fire at fire stations, Wait Till Next Year at ballparks small and large (from little league diamonds to Wrigley Field and Fenway Park), and The Zookeeper’s Wife at zoos.

To help World Book Night keep creating stories–and readers–for years to come, you can make a tax-deductible gift to World Book Night now or volunteer to participate next year. World Book Night: spreading the love of reading, person to person.