April is City’s First Readers (CFR) Month, and that means welcoming in spring with special reading events across the city. This season’s signature program started on a bright Friday afternoon, April 10, when a troop of New York City families traversed The Bronx Zoo as part of CFR’s Little Readers Glow Safari. 

The adventure began inside with glow-in-the-dark sensory activities, a scavenger hunt, free tickets to explore the zoo, and a chance to win a zoo membership. CFR partners: the New York Public Library, JCCA, and La Fuerza provided free books. Over 50 families flocked to the great Schiff Hall for a read-aloud of Solitary Animals: Introverts of the Wild, written by Joshua David Stein and illustrated by Dominique Ramsey. Families were delighted to meet and speak with Bronx advocate, Assemblymember Karines Reyes, of District 87. 

City’s First Readers (CFR) helps families find ways to bring reading activities into daily chores and provides a wide variety of free and fun literacy programs across the five boroughs. Twice a year we celebrate CFR month and our 17 partner organizations are excited to offer special events around the city that are designed to set children up for success in school and in life! 

To search for CFR month programs in your area, please visit www.citysfirstreaders.com or contact Emmanuel Novy, Chief of Strategic Initiatives at enovy@lincnyc.org.

About City’s First Readers (CFR): Established by the New York City Council in 2014, City’s First Readers is an initiative in collaboration with 17 nonprofit organizations and coordinated by Literacy in Community (LINC), fostering the literacy development of children birth through five. The initiative was started to address the literacy crisis in New York City by building a coalition with the capacity to build an equitable city where children start school ready to read. To learn more about CFR, please visit www.citysfirstreaders.com.