Each Wednesday, celebrities are pitching in to read their favorite children’s books on Zigazoo to promote literacy and share the love of reading with hundreds of thousands of children across the world.
Each reading comes with a unique challenge question designed to help teach a positive lesson, giving Zigazoo users a chance to respond to their favorite stars directly with a video.
Early literacy skills play a major role in long-term academic achievement, including high school completion and college graduation. To inspire kids to fall in love with reading and practice these essential literacy skills, Zigazoo has invited actors, musicians, athletes, and more to host readings of their favorite books on the app and create a corresponding challenge to make the readings interactive. Each time Zigazoo users film a video response to their favorite star, they earn a book badge to add to their Zigazoo profile.
The Celebrity Reads program started this past summer and has already received hundreds of thousands of views in its first few weeks. Stars from hit series and movies like This Is Us and PAW Patrol kicked off the initiative. The most recent reading came from LeBron James who read his children’s book, I Promise.
Zak Ringelstein, founder and CEO of Zigazoo, said, “We founded Zigazoo to help inspire kids to be the best version of themselves. How amazing is it that celebrities are using their powerful voices to encourage kids on Zigazoo to dream big and discover the joy of reading!”
Celebrities have rallied to support Zigazoo’s mission of giving kids a healthier, more creative screen time. Serena Williams' Serena Ventures and Jimmy Kimmel both invested in Zigazoo’s recent fundraising round, which was led by MaC Venture Capital earlier this spring. Since then, Zigazoo content has come from brands such as Apple TV+, Netflix, Peanuts Worldwide, PAW Patrol, and the newly released Addams Family 2 movie.
Just over a year since launching, Zigazoo is a top-10 app on the Apple App Store for kids in the 9 to 11 year-old age bracket.
Find out more here.
