Brightly (www.readbrightly.com), a new online resource that encourages parents to raise lifelong readers, launched as a Penguin Random House initiative. Brightly aims to provide moms and dads with inspiration and guidance around creating a reading life for their families. This lifestyle site dedicated to reading, shares book recommendations from across the children’s publishing world for every age and stage, as well as reading tips and insights, special author and illustrator content, seasonal activities, and more. Brightly makes this information accessible to today’s mobile, connected parents on the social channels they frequent, such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram.
Brightly is co-founded by Amanda Close and Christine McNamara, book lovers and moms who in the course of their book-publishing careers discovered that parents craved more lifestyle content dedicated to reading and children. As parents who love to read, they want to share that passion with their children and bond over books. As busy moms, they’ve also experienced the challenges that get in the way of developing this connection. Brightly’s aim is to help parents create a reading life for their families in a way that’s fun and inspirational.
On Brightly, parents can expect to find age-specific content, news about books and authors, and articles that explore topics like reading aloud to big kids, diverse books, celebrity reading role models, funny books to read with kids, and even book recommendations for grown-ups.
“As a lifelong book lover, I want to share my interest and passion with my family, especially with my son, but as a working mom, I’ve seen firsthand how our busy lifestyle can make this a challenge,” said Close, Senior Vice President, Consumer Marketing Development at Penguin Random House.
Brightly’s editorial direction is led by Liz Kotin, formerly of DisneyBaby.com. Kotin brings together some of the best voices covering reading and parenting on the Web to create a dedicated resource for families that offers inspiration and ideas around reading, in a space that has been largely academic in scope.
“Brightly is like your fun, friendly, and well-informed kid-lit pal. Our focus is on celebrating and embracing different kinds of readers, kids, and interests. Brightly gives parents insights into which books and authors their children might get excited about and what activities might enhance a family’s experience of reading,” said Kotin.
Christine McNamara, Penguin Random House’s Vice President and Director of Partnerships added, “We estimate that there are more than a quarter of a million children’s books on the market, so finding the right book for the right child at the right time can be challenging. Unfortunately, not everyone is blessed with a fantastic local bookstore or librarian to guide them. I wanted help navigating those stacks and we’re finding that other parents do, too. Hopefully, Brightly will help provide that for us.”
To celebrate the site launch, Brightly is giving away a children’s library and design dollars to help parents create a dream reading nook.
About Penguin Random House
Penguin Random House (http://global.penguinrandomhouse.com ) is the world’s largest and first truly global trade book publisher. The company is made up of 250 editorially and creatively independent imprints and publishing houses that collectively publish more than 15,000 new titles annually worldwide, along with the works of more than 70 Nobel Prize laureates and hundreds of the world’s most widely read bestselling authors. It employs more than 11,500 people across the adult and children’s fiction and nonfiction print, audio, and digital trade book publishing businesses of Penguin and Random House in the U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, India and South Africa; Penguin’s trade publishing activity in Asia; DK Worldwide; and Penguin Random House Grupo Editorial’s companies in Spain, Mexico, Argentina, Uruguay, Colombia, Chile, Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, Paraguay, Venezuela, the Dominican Republic, and Central America, and its Portuguese-language company in Portugal. Penguin Random House was formed on July 1, 2013 and is jointly owned by Bertelsmann (53%) and Pearson (47%).
