Pharrell Williams
Is on track to make 2016 his Happiest Year Ever!
By Rhonda Price
If there’ s anyone determined to have a“ Happy” New Year, it’ s Pharrell Williams. The wildly popular singer, songwriter, record producer and coach on NBC’ s The Voice is bringing his hit song“ Happy” to life in a newly released children’ s picture book( Putnam Books for Young Readers, $ 19.99), celebrating what it means to be happy in cultures throughout the world. Aside from the book’ s upbeat messages, Happy is especially meaningful because of Pharrell’ s literacy campaign with Penguin Young Readers and the non-profit organization FirstBook, as they’ ve teamed up to donate 50,000 copies to children in low-income families.
“ Every child deserves to experience the joy of reading,” said Pharrell when we checked in with him during his recent book-signing tour.“ I hope this book inspires children and teaches them the importance of being happy and true to themselves.”
Social media is abuzz with the hash tag # ReadHappy, created specifically for people to share why reading makes them happy. For every post using the hash tag, his book will be donated to a child in need. Even though Pharrell supports numerous charitable projects focused on educating youth in at-risk communities with his not-for-profit foundation From One Hand to AnOTHER, encouraging children to read ranks high on his list.
“ Reading is very important because it’ s one of the main tools we use to gain information,” he said.“ To be able to operate in the real world, you have to be able to obtain information. That’ s why I’ m committed to promoting child literacy and believe my book is a perfect vehicle to help accomplish this goal,”
Reading is also close to Pharrell’ s heart because he attributes the internationally best-selling book The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho with dramatically changing his life. The book’ s main premise is that life is meant to be a journey for finding one’ s true