Barbershop Books Wins UPenn Lipman Family Prize!
Child-centered, Strengths-based, and Research Informed
Fueling Impactful Family and Community Engagement
Communities already have the raw materials needed to inspire children to read. The Barbershop Books program is simply put – a catalyst. We help mission-aligned organizations successfully implement early literacy programming in neighborhood barbershops. Our trauma-informed barber training, curated content, and branded materials increase access to male reading role models and reduce reading trauma.
Program Impacts (participating barbershops)
- Increases out-of-school time reading among Black boys
- Black boys are more likely to be observed reading independently
- Black boys are more likely to identify as readers
Barbershop Books In the News
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Browse our E-Library
Features 70+ fun storytime videos and a diverse collection of independently published ebooks.
Recommend a barbershop
Want to help bring fun books to a local barbershop? Connect us with an interested shop.
What We’ve Heard
Helping Black Boys Identify As Readers
We seek out and integrate the interests, knowledge, and lived experiences of Black boys and other vulnerable children. Their voices and recommendations inform our book curation and programming.
The Barbershop Books E-Library features fun storytime videos and high-quality, independently published e-books from diverse authors.
Barbershop Books’ first-of-its-kind reading identity development platform Reading So Lit® is a strengths-based reading intervention for grades PK-5. This web-based tool leverages multimedia, social-emotional learning, and artificial intelligence to support holistic reading personalization and student-driven decision making.
Reading So Lit is the winner of Tools Competition’s 2023 Catalyst Award and is a New Schools Venture Fund 2024 Learning Solutions grantee.
The Barbershop Books® program is an award-winning family and community engagement model that helps mission-aligned organizations, such as libraries, school districts, city governments, and local nonprofits, implement early literacy programming in neighborhood barbershops – a culturally meaningful space for Black boys.
This reading identity development program uses boy-approved books to create child-friendly reading spaces in barbershops. Participating barbershops receive early literacy training and branded materials, increasing access to male reading role models and out-of-school time reading opportunities.
