Meghan Markle has decided to share her wisdom and insight into the bonds forged by parenting and distribute 2,000 copies of her book The Bench to libraries and schools across the U.S. for “no cost.”
Markle and husband Prince Harry broke their self-imposed 20 weeks of parental leave to ensure the announcement was made public.
The move by the former actress is part of her self-declared aim to deliver “creative activations,” and “drive systemic cultural change across all communities, one act of compassion at a time.”
The debut tome was released earlier this week, inspired by a poem she wrote for Prince Harry’s first Father’s Day the month after their son Archie was born.
The story details the “special bond between father and son” as “seen through a mother’s eyes.”
In a statement posted to Beverly Hills-based charity foundation Archewell, the couple said they had “received the support of the publisher of The Bench to distribute 2,000 copies at no cost to libraries, community centers, schools, and nonprofit programs across the country” to “help nourish the community through through learning and connection.”
Archewell is working in tandem with First Book, a nonprofit social enterprise that’s distributed more than 200 million books and educational resources to programs and schools serving kids in low-income communities in the United States and Canada.
Popular culture expert Nick Ede told the Daily Mail the Duchess of Sussex could have expected to be paid somewhere between $370,000 and $700,000 in advance to write the book.
The announcement of the giveaway comes three days after the Royal couple announced the birth of their daughter Lilibet Diana, as Breitbart News reported.
The child — the couple’s second, who will be eighth in line to the British throne — was born Friday in Santa Barbara and was now out of the hospital and at home.