Our Story

Bring Me A Book Hong Kong is a registered charity under Section 88 of the Inland Revenue Ordinance [IR File Number 91/8143].

Established in 2006 by James and Su Chen from The Chen Yet-Sen Foundation, we were first established as the international arm of Bring Me A Book™ Foundation, founded by Judy Koch in 1997 in the U.S.

Since Judy Koch’s passing in 2023, the work of Bring Me A Book™ Foundation in the U.S. is now undertaken by Stanford Center on Early Childhood (SCEC).

Bring Me A Book Hong Kong is now an independent local charity serving to enrich the lives of all in the Hong Kong community.

Our Mission

Bring Me A Book Hong Kong uses evidence-based research to provide:

Transformational trainings for parents and educators
The best Chinese and English children’s books
Quality programs to access authors and literacy experts

Our Vision

We envision a Hong Kong in which every child is read to, strengthening family and community bonds, and creating a love of learning.

How We Started

Inspired by first-hand experience

After their first child was born, James and Su Chen from The Chen Yet-Sen Family Foundation, witnessed first-hand the pressures Hong Kong children face and the lack of reading culture in Hong Kong.

They recognized that too often, a child’s “success” was based on their last test score, rather than focusing on nurturing an independent thinker who is self-motivated and empathetic – just a few of the benefits that arise from reading for pleasure.

Rather than ‘reinventing the wheel’, they searched around the world for a non-profit organization that could address these issues and help change the local mindset in Hong Kong. When James and Su Chen met Judy Koch, Founder of the Bring Me a Book Foundation in the U.S., she told them her dream was “for every child to be read to.”

Set up in 1997, Bring Me a Book Foundation’s emphasis on empowering parents to the joys and advantages of reading to their children and providing libraries of quality books for easy access in underserved communities, resonated deeply with James and Su Chen.

Hong Kong’s Literacy Crisis

Did you know that out of 57 countries surveyed*, Hong Kong rates the LOWEST in literacy on many different levels?

of parents read with their kids
(Compared with the international average of 42%)

0 %

of HK students are 'very confident' in reading
(Compared with the international average of 43%)

0 %

of HK parents are ‘very much like’ reading
(One of lowest rates of parent modelling)

0 %

*PIRLS (Progress in International Reading Literacy Study, 2021)

Established in Hong Kong in 2006

In 2006, Bring Me a Book™ Hong Kong (BMABHK) was officially launched. The Chen Yet-Sen Family Foundation seeded the operational costs for the first five years and since then, BMABHK has become 100 per cent self-reliant on finding other sources of funding to cover both operational and program costs – through the generous support of corporations, individuals, government grants, foundations, social enterprise initiatives and fundraisers.

Establishing the Feng Zikai Chinese Children’s Picture Book Award

In 2008, the Feng Zikai Chinese Children’s Picture Book Award was established after Su and James Chen noticed that the number of original Chinese children’s books was greatly outnumbered by translated children’s books from the US, UK, Japan, among other countries. As the first international prize of its kind, the Feng Zikai Chinese Children’s Picture Book Award is awarded biennially to the best picture books originally published in Chinese.

The international success of the Feng Zikai Award was catapulted after the winner from inaugural award, “A New Year’s Reunion” was translated and selected as The New York Times Top Ten Best Illustrated Children’s Books of 2011. Since then, many other of the Feng Zikai award-winning books have been translated into several languages, include English, French, Japanese and Korean.

The award is sponsored by Mrs. Daisy Chen, and co-sponsored by Bring Me a Book™ Hong Kong.

We would like to thank The Chen Yet-Sen Family Foundation for their support over the years, and applaud their hard work and dedication supporting education, learning, and personal development since the Foundation was inaugurated in 2003.

Here, two sisters sit on a bunk bed in a 40 square foot cubicle with no window. They are trying to do their homework. A Bring Me a Book bag is hanging at the back. Ensuring our libraries are installed where they are most needed allows for easy access to quality books for the most vulnerable families in HK.

Photo credit: Benny Lam for SOCO