New York, NY, May 8, 2013 - The National Book Foundation has awarded its fifth annual Innovations in Reading Prizes to five organizations that are demonstrating passion, creativity, dedication, and leadership in the service of creating and sustaining a lifelong love of reading. The winners are: City National Bank for Reading Is the Way Up®, a program based on the belief that reading is vital to attaining career success which sponsors literary activities and programs for young people in the communities that they serve; Little Free Library, a movement that inspires people to erect structures to house free books for exchange in their communities; the Uni Project, a portable reading room that transforms any public space into an environment for books and learning; the Uprise Books Project, which encourages underprivileged teens to read by providing them with "forbidden" books and a safe place to read and discuss them; and Worldreader, a nonprofit that provides people in the developing world with access to digital books via e-readers and mobile phones.

The winners hail from Los Angeles, California; Hudson, Wisconsin; New York, New York; Vancouver, Washington; and Seattle, Washington. Each winner will receive $2,500, a framed certificate, and an all-expenses-paid trip to New York City to attend a special luncheon at the Ford Foundation, where they will present their work to funders, other people in the field, and reporters. While in New York, all winners will attend National Book Award-related activities, such as 5 Under 35, the Finalists Reading, and the National Book Awards Ceremony and Benefit Dinner at Cipriani Wall Street on November 20, 2013.

The winners are:

City National Bank for Reading Is the Way Up®

Los Angeles, CA

www.readingisthewayup.org; www.facebook.com/readingisthewayup

City National Bank believes that a good education and the ability to learn throughout one's career are vital to success in today's world, and it all starts with reading.

Reading Is the Way Up® was started in 2002 to address the plight of school libraries and the lack of current and compelling books available to students. To date, through strategic partnerships with Barnes and Noble and Reading Is Fundamental, the program has placed over 170,000 books into the hands of students.

In 2005, a literacy grant component was added to the program. Since then, more than $600,000 in grants has been awarded to elementary, middle, and high school teachers in the five states where City National has offices. In 2011, school author visits were added to the program, and each student in attendance gets a signed copy of the author's book. In addition, City National colleagues are encouraged to participate in the program and are given paid time off to do so.