As 2025 comes to a close, we’re celebrating the extraordinary work of the educators and librarians who brought stories to life in their communities this year. From energizing readers during Summer Reading to working towards a collective goal for the Reading Culture Awards, we saw more minutes logged, more pages turned, and a whole lot of excitement for Benny the Bean, our lovable bean-shaped mascot.
This year also brought new ways to celebrate you! The first-ever April Library Love Challenge highlighted the spaces and staff that spark curiosity every day. And our new Teacher Champion Award recognized the educators who went above and beyond to fuel reading in their classrooms.
Guided by our core values—love, inclusion, and awesomeness—we launched new tools, shared best practices, and cheered every reader on along the way. None of this would be possible without you. Thank you for your passion, your creativity, and your dedication to building joyful, thriving reading communities.
2025 by the Numbers
As we welcome a new year, let’s take a moment to reflect on the impact you've made. Our school and library communities reached incredible heights, and these numbers tell the story.
- Beanstack users logged a record of over 2.7 billion minutes in 2025
- Collectively, Beanstack users logged over 60 million books in 2025
New Features and Innovations
From small enhancements to major releases, our focus in 2025 was on making Beanstack more intuitive, supportive, and impactful for educators and librarians. Here are our top new features of the year:
- Book Talks with Benny – Benny the Bean, your AI-powered assistant, is now an essential part of the student experience. Benny sparks fun, open-ended conversations with students, surfacing insights on honest logging and reading engagement.
- Benny’s Number Cruncher – Makes it easier than ever to uncover quick, actionable student insights, giving you a fast snapshot of reading activity across your community.
- Daily Reading Tracker – Offers a clear, at-a-glance view of students’ daily and weekly reading habits. No more guesswork, just straightforward, meaningful data right at your fingertips.
- Automatic Challenges – Automatically publishes our most popular challenge each month, helping you keep your community engaged without lifting a finger.
Let’s talk about three of the biggest page-turners of the year—our sponsored reading challenges! Using competition, recognition, and proven gamification principles, these challenges motivate whole communities to read more. Our annual challenges encouraged participating schools and libraries to read together and celebrate each other.
We celebrated YOU with our April Library Love Challenge.
Our first-ever April Library Love challenge was a huge success! This special challenge provided an opportunity to encourage reading, promote resources, and celebrate all the fantastic things libraries and librarians do for their communities. 848 school and public libraries participated!
You Splashed Into Stories This Summer
This summer, more than 230 public libraries and 3,500 schools dove into our favorite seasonal challenges with enthusiasm. Together, millions of readers logged over 141 million minutes and 23,000 books, exploring new worlds, discovering new favorites, and keeping their reading momentum strong.
And Became Reading Machines This Winter
Each year, our annual Winter Reading Challenge encourages schools and libraries to start the new year with a good book. In 2025, we kept the tradition going strong. More than 4,700 schools and libraries joined the fun, turning chilly days into prime reading time.
Together, participants logged over 84 million minutes and more than 138 thousand books, proving once again that winter is the perfect season to cozy up, explore new stories, and kick off the year with momentum.
We Celebrated Schools as They Rallied Readers
Now in its second year, The Reading Culture Awards recognize and reward schools as they reach participation benchmarks in Beanstack throughout the year. Since the start of the school year, communities have rallied together to strengthen their reading cultures and pursue shared goals.
- 2,877 schools sparked something big by reaching 10% student participation.
- 2,263 schools hit 25% participation, earning Igniter status.
- 2,253 schools reached 50% participation, earning Pathfinder status.
- 1,398 schools achieved a 75% participation rate, earning the coveted Trailblazer status. These schools were entered into monthly drawings, where 10 schools won $100 prizes and one lucky school took home $1,000, plus a box of Benny the Bean plushies, each month.
Since the program launched in August, we’ve seen 85% year-over-year growth in Trailblazers. More of you are ramping up and reaching 75% student participation earlier this year. Well done!
Plus, a Special Bonus for Our Teacher Champions!
We’ve learned that thriving reading communities are powered by strong partnerships between librarians, media specialists, and the teachers who cheer students on. That’s why we expanded the Reading Culture Awards to include the new Teacher Champion Awards, celebrating educators who inspire and support student participation.
When a teacher has 10 or more students actively logging in Beanstack, they earn a free Benny plushie to keep the reading spirit alive in their classroom! So far in 2025, over 5,000 teachers have received their very own Benny.
The response has been incredible: plushies flew off the shelves in the first week, finding homes in classrooms nationwide and spreading excitement everywhere they landed.
That’s a Wrap on 2025
Looking back on 2025, one thing is clear: you + Beanstack (+ Benny) = incredible reading culture! From the millions of minutes logged to the new features launched, this year’s achievements reflect the dedication of the educators and librarians we’re proud to support.
As we head into 2026, we’re ready to keep building with you—new features, new initiatives, and new ways to celebrate your impact. Here's to another great year ahead!