Barnes & Noble.com Announces Letter Blocks

Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS), the world’s largest bookseller, announced today the debut of the Letter Blocks blog on Barnes & Noble.com (www.bn.com). A part of B&N Jr., Letter Blocks is intended for parents who want to get their kids hooked on reading, and for anyone interested in children’s literacy. Letter Blocks (www.bn.com/letterblocks) offers advice and family-friendly recommendations, enlightening and heart-warming stories about young readers, and insights from some of today’s top writers.

Through August, Letter Blocks will focus on summer reading for kids, with guest blogs from authors and reading-minded celebrities. The Letter Blocks summer reading series is an extension of Barnes & Noble’s 2009 Summer Reading Program, which promotes reading outside the classroom and rewards children for reading during the summer months. Celebrity guest bloggers will contribute narratives covering a wide range of topics, including memories about the first books they read, important reading milestones, their favorite children's books and how they influenced them and how they get their own children to read. The poignant, often funny stories will inspire readers to look back at their own reading histories, and to evaluate the reading habits of their own children. The interactive summer reading blog series will continue through August, and will be open for reader participation.

The summer reading series kicks-off this week with blog posts and comments from Rick Riordan, author of the bestselling "Percy Jackson & the Olympians” series and the featured author in this year’s Barnes & Noble Summer Reading Program. Riordan, who is known for encouraging parents to read to and with their children, blogs, "Your children are never too old to be read to, and any good story is twice as good when it is shared aloud.” His posts will include fun facts including what his family is reading this summer, what literary character he’d most like to be and much more.

Participating in the weeks ahead are bestselling authors including Kelly Corrigan (The Middle Place), romance writers Christine Feehan and Christina Dodd, Kate Jacobs (The Friday Night Knitting Club), "Sookie Stackhouse” creator Charlaine Harris, thriller writers Joseph Finder and Ridley Pearson, as well as Kristin Hannah, Chelsea Cain, Rebecca Wells, and many others.

Also scheduled to participate are entertainers such as comedian Michael Ian Black, Julianne Moore, The Office’s Ed Helms, A-Team creator Stephen J. Cannell, Indigo Girl Emily Saliers, and William Shatner.

Now in its 13^th year, the Barnes & Noble Summer Reading Program encourages kids to read during the summer – a crucial time to instill a love of books in children and create lifelong readers. Children who complete a reading journal receive a coupon for a free book from among select titles at Barnes & Noble, and are entered in a drawing to win a free, signed copy of The Last Olympian, the final installment of Riordan’s "Percy Jackson” series. Additional information, including interactive activities for children, is available at www.BN.com/SummerReading.

About Barnes & Noble, Inc.

Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS), the world’s largest bookseller and a Fortune 500 company, operates 777 bookstores in 50 states. Barnes & Noble is the nation’s top bookseller in quality, and for the fifth year in a row, the top bookseller brand, as determined by a combination of the brand’s performance on familiarity, quality, and purchase intent, according to the EquiTrend® Brand Study by Harris Interactive®. Barnes & Noble conducts its online business through Barnes & Noble.com (www.bn.com), one of the Web’s largest e-commerce sites.

General information on Barnes & Noble, Inc. can be obtained via the Internet by visiting the company’s corporate website: www.barnesandnobleinc.com.