About Our
Reading Platform
Our story begins at Princeton University in 2020. Our founder, Will Peters, created the initial prototype of Bookji while taking the popular ENG 385: Children's Literature course.
The original premise of the application was simple: to connect students with books that intest them through a short, interactive quiz about their reading preferences.
Since its inception, Bookji has grown from a single-page reading quiz into a fully-fledged social reading platform.
Now, the goal of our platform is to prioritize making books and learning more compelling to this generation of young readers. We want to get rid of the negative stigma associated with reading for many kids today.
Meet our founder
Will Peters
Princeton class of 2023, A.B. Computer Science
Student in the 2024 Educational Innovation, Technology, and Entrepreneurship Master's program at The University of North Carolina.
"As a student in grade school, I was a reluctant reader and continually struggled to find books I enjoyed. Like many of today's children, I found reading boring, and technologies like TV and web browsing more enticing. I first saw reading in a different light when, through a recommendation from a friend, I discovered Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson and the Olympians and could not put the series down. From this positive experience with reading during my youth, I continued to find other books I have enjoyed from a wide array of genres. My hesitant past with books as a young reader fueled my desire to create a solution for students today who feel like I did."
For the future
Check out this paper written about Bookji by our founder Will for his Princeton senior thesis.
Abstract: Many students across the United States find books uninteresting, and as a result, reading rates have plummeted in recent years. This paper details the design, development, and testing of a contemporary e-reader that engages today’s children with books. This project accomplishes its goal by making reading more collaborative between peers with reading groups and emoji reactions. It also adds enticing discovery functionality for students, such as interactive maps and word pronunciation.
