American Action Fund Announces the 2023 Braille Book Selections
SUBSCRIBERS WILL RECEIVE BRAILLE VERSIONS OF BOOKS IN POPULAR CHILDREN’S SERIES
November 15, 2022, Baltimore, Maryland: The American Action Fund (AAF) for Blind Children and Adults will soon begin distributing free Braille copies of titles focusing on diversity, adventure, history, resilience, and fun as part of its Free Braille Books Program for the calendar year 2023. The program serves over four thousand blind children in the United States by sending them a free Braille book to keep each month, and focuses on producing popular books and series that have not previously been produced in Braille. Starting in January 2023, a new book will be sent to program participants:
- January: Clubhouse Mysteries #1: The Buried Bones Mystery By Sharon M. Draper
- February: Clubhouse Mysteries #2: Lost in the Tunnel of Time By Sharon M. Draper
- March: Her Epic Adventure: 25 Women Who Inspire a Life Less Ordinary By Julia De Laurentis Johnston
- April: Clubhouse Mysteries #3: Shadows of Caesar’s Creek By Sharon M. Draper
- May: Clubhouse Mysteries #4: The Space Mission Adventure By Sharon M. Draper
- June: My Name is Maria Isabel By Alma Flor Ada
- July: Clubhouse Mysteries #5: The Backyard Animal Show By Sharon M. Draper
- August: Clubhouse Mysteries #6: Stars and Sparks On Stage By Sharon M. Draper
- September: Bravo!: Poems About Amazing Hispanics By Margarita Engle
- October: The Used-To-Be Best Friend (Jo Jo Makoons #1) By Dawn Quigley
- November: Fancy Pants (Jo Jo Makoons #2) By Dawn Quigley
- December: We Rise, We Resist, We Raise Our Voices By Wade Hudson and Cheryl Willis Hudson
“For over a century, the Action Fund has been dedicated to the advancement of Braille literacy among blind and deafblind people,” said Mark Riccobono, Executive Director of the American Action Fund for Blind Children and Adults. “Our Free Braille Books Program for children furthers this mission by allowing kids to acquire and read the same books their friends are reading. Reading is also critical to learning, and the books we have selected for 2023 will help blind children connect with characters who, though fictional, share many things in common with children everywhere. It is our hope that by including characters from diverse backgrounds children from those same backgrounds will see themselves in these characters, and kids from other backgrounds will appreciate the differences and similarities in their culture and the cultures of others. Also, for the first time in many years, we are including books with poetry in this program. We hope this will allow blind children to gain an appreciation for poetry. We believe these books will contribute significantly to the Braille skills of these young readers.”
The American Action Fund for Blind Children and Adults contracts with the Clovernook Center’s Braille Printing House to emboss and distribute the Braille books for this program. For more information about the American Action Fund’s Free Braille Books Program, please visit: https://actionfund.org/free-braille-books.
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ABOUT AMERICAN ACTION FUND
The American Action Fund for Blind Children and Adults, a nonprofit organization founded in 1919 and headquartered in Baltimore, helps blind people throughout the United States through programs and initiatives emphasizing Braille and tactile literacy, education, and independence.