Barnes & Noble in Pensacola invites customers to give the gift of reading during the company’s annual holiday book drive, which began Nov. 1 and runs through Dec. 31. And this year, SCI is the store's partner.

The book drive gives customers the opportunity to donate books to locally designated nonprofit organizations. In Pensacola, the books donated will be used in support of SCI’s Sibling Brain Builder Project.

“SCI is so proud to be part of the annual holiday book drive at the Airport Boulevard Barnes & Noble store,” said Shannon Nickinson director of early learning for SCI. “A book is truly a gift that lasts a lifetime. Every donated book will find a good home with a child whose love of reading will grow with every page turned.”

Launched in Escambia County elementary and middle schools in September of 2019, SCI Sibling Brain Builders promote literacy interactions between siblings in innovative ways that are both educational and maintain an element of choice that generates new links between home and school.

At Bellview Middle School, students with siblings ages 0 to 5 will take home lessons, worksheets and books to share and use with their younger brothers and sisters at home. The learning environment promotes brain building in babies while improving kindergarten and school readiness.

At Montclair, Weis and Lincoln Park elementary schools, librarians will provide pupils with books and reading materials to take home to share and read with their younger siblings to help stimulate and build their brains. Using Brain Builder Reading Logs, students must track the number of minutes they read with a younger sibling at home and return those forms each week. Incentives include:

— A treat (candy, bookmark, pencil, etc.) for reading 1 hour per week with a sibling.

— A book for every child who turns in one month’s worth of Reading Logs meeting the minimum 1-hour threshold.

“The sibling project is so exciting for us,” Nickinson said. “Bringing older brothers and sisters into the fold of fueling healthy brain development by reading together is an important extension of our work with the Brain Bag project in hospitals. We feel like we are watching the early learning city grow before our eyes with this project.

“We are grateful to Bellview Middle teacher Dee Wright and author Anna Theriault for volunteering their time, talents and effort to help us launch Sibling Brain Builders. With a successful holiday book drive we hope to have enough books for all of our participants to finish the school year with a small home library the whole family can turn to for years to come.”

“The Holiday Book Drive is a favorite program of both booksellers and customers across the country,” says Tracy Vidakovich, vice president of business development for Barnes & Noble. “Customers often purchase and donate a personal childhood favorite as a way to pass on a holiday tradition to a child in their local community.”

To find out how to participate in the Holiday Book Drive, contact Laura Fox, Barnes & Noble Business Community Development Manager , at (850) 969-9554.