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Yesterday the National Book Foundation announced the recipients of its 2012 "Innovations in Reading" grants—and for the second year in a row, a Portland organization is on the list.

This year's winner Uprise Books provides banned books to underprivileged teens—it's a neat little concept banking on the idea that knowing that a book is "banned for language and sexual references" might actually make it more interesting to reluctant readers. (We wrote about Uprise a couple years ago.)

"It's a $2,500 award," explains Uprise founder Justin Stanley, "plus a trip to New York in November to present about the organization and attend all the National Book Awards events." He says some of the money will be put away for overhead, some will go toward completing their website, "and the rest will go towards books and kids."

Last year, the Portland-based mobile library Street Books snagged one of the grants—it's great to see Portland (/Vancouver) organizations getting this kind of attention.