Through two literacy-based grant programs, Penguin Random House, in partnership with the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), is thrilled to recognize the nation’s most dynamic and resourceful teachers who use their creativity to inspire and successfully instill a lifelong love of reading and poetry in students.   The National Teacher Award for Lifelong

  “Readawoke Community of Readers Challenge” Named a 2019 Library Journal Mover and Shaker and Georgia Library Media Specialist of the Year, Cicely Lewis is a school librarian with a passion for creating lovers of reading. In 2017, she started the Read Woke challenge in response to the shootings of young unarmed black boys, the

  “Speak Yo’ Peace” Rick’s passion and commitment to educational equity have taken root over the course of his 14-year career as a middle school ELA teacher in the Chicago Public Schools. He has developed his activist stance through doctoral work at the University of Illinois of Chicago, where he studies culturally sustaining pedagogy, disciplinary