Fantasy Author and Teen Rock Group Launch

 Read On! Literacy Campaign

Marblehead, MA/Alpharetta, GA  Tuesday, February 11, 2011

Award-winning author Julie Hahnke (Marblehead, MA) has teamed with Atlanta’s teen rock sensation von Grey to launch a national literacy campaign entitled Read On! A recent study by the National Endowment for the Arts reported an alarming drop in reading for pleasure among teens. The Read On! campaign targets this downward trend and hopes to reverse it by encouraging youth to read more books for pleasure.

 “You’d be surprised at the power a book holds,” claims Hahnke. “Whether novels, non-fiction, poetry, or even graphic novels, books expose us to new ideas and challenge us to consider fresh possibilities—they empower us.” That sentiment is the premise of von Grey’s latest hit single, Read On!, the lyrics of which were co-written by Hahnke. The song is an integral component of the Read On! literacy campaign.

“Kids are open to the message of reading,” Hahnke believes, “but the message has to be delivered in a way that will catch their attention and spark their interest.”

 Band von Grey presented the perfect channel for reaching teens. The band is four sisters, with the von Grey surname (ages ten to sixteen), who blend classical, folk, and country influences into their rock music. When the group “followed” Hahnke on the social media platform Twitter last August, she was blown away by their sound. Having recently opened for a Sarah McLachlan concert in Atlanta, von Grey was clearly on the rise and Hahnke knew their appeal to other teens would be irresistible.

 Supporting social causes is nothing new to the band, who have championed other charitable projects with their music, and they eagerly agreed to Hahnke’s suggestion that they collaborate on the lyrics to a song promoting reading and literacy. The song Read On! is the result of that collaboration.

 Central to the Read On! Literacy Campaign is a school video challenge. Schools across the country are invited to create a music video that encourages kids to read using the song Read On! as the soundtrack. The video challenge was born from the viral success of Ocoee Middle School’s (Ocoee, FL) rewrite of the Black Eyed Peas’ I Gotta Feeling into a pro-reading song, You Gotta Keep Reading, in early 2010. The school’s flash mob video, based on the rewritten song, skyrocketed to national attention last spring catching Oprah’s notice and spawning hundreds of YouTube knock-offs made by schools around the country.

 Early endorsements for the Read On! campaign are both enthusiastic and contagious. Sponsors include New York Times’ best-selling author Peter Reynold’s FableVision Learning company of educational software, IndieBound, the public face of the American Booksellers’ Association, education proponent Senator Mary Landrieu from Louisiana, singer/songwriter superstars Sarah McLachlan and Ed Roland, along with a dozen award-winning children’s and teen authors who have promised autographed books to the winning school (including Sharon Creech, Shaun Tan, Nikki Grimes, and Gene Luen Young, to name a few.)

 Can a catchy song and a video competition excite more kids to read? Julie Hahnke and von Grey think so. As the song Read On! tells us, “We must believe to achieve!”

For more information on the Read On! Literacy Campaign and the School Video Challenge, visit Julie Hahnke’s Web site: www.JulieHahnke.com

 About Julie Hahnke:

A fierce champion of children and teen literacy, Massachusetts-based author Julie Hahnke works with communities around the country to support our schools and instill in kids a love of reading, writing, and life-long learning. Independent bookstores nationwide voted her fantasy, The Grey Ghost, #3 on the Summer ’09 Kids Indie Next List, and it won a 2010 Mom’s Choice Award Silver Medal. Visit www.JulieHahnke.com to learn more about Julie’s work in the schools, curricular support for her books, and the Read On! National Literacy Campaign.

About von Grey:

Band von Grey from Alpharetta, GA is a teen rock group of four sisters, ages ten to sixteen. Their music borrows from country, folk, and classical, to produce a popular sound vibrant with energy and rich with nuanced musicality. von Grey generously supports a number of charitable and social causes in addition to the Read On! Literacy Campaign. To learn more about them, visit www.vonGrey.com.