Usha Vance launches summer reading challenge: All about the programme and how can your kids participate in it
As the school year wraps up and summer stretches ahead, Second Lady Usha Vance is inviting children across the United States to dive into a world of imagination, learning, and discovery—all through the simple joy of reading.
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On June 1st, the Second Lady officially launched the 2025 Summer Reading Challenge, a national initiative encouraging students from kindergarten through 8th grade to read 12 books of their choice over the summer. With rewards that include personalized certificates, small prizes, and even a chance to visit Washington, D.C., this challenge is more than just an activity—it's a celebration of literacy aand childhood curiosity.
'Let the Reading Adventures Begin!'
In her warm message to participants, Usha Vance set the tone for a summer filled with stories:
"Adventure, imagination, and discovery await—right between the pages of a book!"
Children have from June 1 to September 5, 2025, to complete the challenge. The rules are simple: pick 12 books, read them independently or with a family member, and record them using the official Reading Log. Once completed, participants are asked to reflect on their favorite book or character—either by writing or drawing—and submit their work along with the signed form.
What makes this challenge extra special? Every child who finishes will receive a personalized certificate and a small prize. Plus, those who submit their completed forms by the deadline will be entered into a nationwide drawing for a trip to the Nation's Capital, accompanied by a parent or guardian.
In an interview about the inspiration behind the initiative, @SLOTUS (the Second Lady of the United States) shared her concerns about the nationwide decline in reading scores and the ongoing issue of summer learning loss—a phenomenon where students forget academic skills over the break.
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Credit: X/@UshaVanceNews
'I'm aware of these kinds of bigger problems—the decline in reading scores, the persistent problem with summer learning loss... So, my goal is to come up with small ways in which I can use my platform to counteract some of those issues,' Vance said.
While she acknowledges that the challenge may not solve everything, she believes it can plant the seeds of a lifelong love of reading, especially for children who might otherwise fall behind during the summer months.
Here's how students can participate
The structure of the challenge is designed to be accessible and engaging. Here's how students can participate:
Step 1: Choose 12 books that excite you—any genre, any author.
Step 2: Record each book in your Reading Log, noting the title, author, and start/finish dates.
Step 3: After completing all 12, reflect on your reading by writing a short note or drawing a picture about your favorite book or character.
Step 4: Have a parent or guardian sign the form and submit everything via email by September 5, 2025.
The challenge is open to all U.S. children in grades K–8, and participation is entirely voluntary. But the rewards—both tangible and emotional—are clear: confidence in literacy, moments of quiet adventure, and a tangible goal to work toward.
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Indian Express
2 days ago
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Usha Vance's new life in Trump's Washington
She has settled her three children into new schools, set up play dates and overseen the childproofing of her 9,000-square-foot home. She takes the children to the second lady's office overlooking the Washington Monument, attends Mass with her family in the Virginia suburbs and hikes on wooded trails around Washington, the Secret Service in tow. She has a warm relationship with the president of the United States, who marvels over her academic credentials and tells her she is beautiful, a senior administration official said. She gets along with Melania Trump, the first lady, too. Less than a year ago, Usha Vance, onetime Democrat and the daughter of immigrants, was living a radically different life as a litigator for a progressive law firm while raising her children in Ohio. Many old friends are bewildered by her transformation. She may be the wife of the vice president, they say, but she must be appalled by the Trump administration's attacks on academia, law firms, judges, diversity programs and immigrants. Others say she likes the respite from her legal career and the glamour and influence of her new role. (Vance, who clerked for Chief Justice John Roberts and was a top editor on The Yale Law Journal, referred to herself at a recent public appearance as a 'former lawyer.') She always supported her husband's ambitions, they note, even if she did not necessarily share them. People close to the vice president, who went from being a vocal critic of now-President Donald Trump to his running mate, argue that Vance went on a similar but less public journey that soured her on the left. Either way, colleagues say, she is a model, at least for now, of a movement embraced by the White House and pushed by her husband that encourages women to have more children and celebrate the family as the centerpiece of American life. 'I think she's doing a great job as second lady of the United States,' Vice President JD Vance said in March in Bay City, Michigan, with Usha Vance standing behind him. 'And here's the thing: Because the cameras are all on, anything that I say, no matter how crazy, Usha has to smile and laugh and celebrate it.' Online critics slammed the vice president for sexism. But those who know the couple say that no matter her silence in public, JD Vance leans on his wife's counsel in private. 'Her influence on her husband is incalculable,' said the senior Trump administration official, who has worked with Usha Vance on and off for the past year and asked not to be named in order to speak freely. The official described the second lady as someone who has 'well considered' opinions on marriage, politics and faith, but holds herself at reserve. If Vance, 39, is not happy with all aspects of the Trump White House, friends say she would never let on. 'Her history and her upbringing suggest it,' the administration official said, 'but she's married to JD, and at some point you have to accept it.' The Vances have babysitters but no live-in nanny, and JD Vance leaves the West Wing many early evenings to have dinner with his family and help put the children to bed. The Vances have also taken their three children, now 8, 5 and 3, on official international trips, including to Good Friday services at the Vatican and to dinner in New Delhi with the prime minister of India. Vance declined to be interviewed for this article, as did a large number of relatives, friends and colleagues. More than a dozen who did offer their perspectives did so on the condition of anonymity out of fear of angering her. Only recently has she tiptoed out on her own and offered a glimpse of herself and the purpose she sees in her new role. On June 1, she announced on social platform X the 'Second Lady's 2025 Summer Reading Challenge' for children, driven by her view that reading is an antidote to modern distractions, including her own. From the start, back when they first met at Yale Law School, Usha Vance has been her husband's guide to the elite and a cool salve for his hot temper. One friend of the couple said he would not be vice president without her. 'I'm one of those guys who really benefits from having sort of a powerful female voice over his left shoulder saying, 'Don't do that, do that,'' JD Vance told Megyn Kelly in 2020. For a long time it was his grandmother, Mamaw. 'Now it's Usha,' he said. Unlike JD Vance, whose roots are in a dysfunctional family of the white underclass captured in his bestselling memoir, 'Hillbilly Elegy,' Usha Vance is the eldest of two daughters of accomplished Indian immigrants, Krish and Lakshmi Chilukuri. They arrived in California in the early 1980s. The Chilukuris settled in Rancho Peñasquitos, a planned San Diego neighborhood, where their home today is worth $1.4 million. Vance's father, Krish, worked as an aerospace engineer at United Technologies and Collins Aerospace for 30 years and is now a lecturer at San Diego State. Lakshmi, Vance's mother, is a molecular biologist and the provost of Sixth College, an undergraduate school at the University of California, San Diego. Vance blazed her way through the local Mount Carmel High School, Yale College, a teaching fellowship in China and a prestigious Gates Foundation scholarship at the University of Cambridge in Britain. She wrote in the Gates scholars' yearbook that her interests were 'exploring urban neighborhoods, cooking & green markets, long walks, panicking about law school.' Whatever worries she may have had, friends describe her as a picture of confidence when she was back at Yale in 2010 to start law school. She and JD Vance were soon assigned as partners on a major writing assignment. He was awestruck. 'She seemed some sort of genetic anomaly, a combination of every positive quality a human being should have: bright, hardworking, tall and beautiful,' he wrote in a widely quoted passage in 'Hillbilly Elegy.' The feeling was not mutual at first. 'I think it's fair to say that JD was sort of the pedal in the relationship and I was a little bit of the brakes,' she told the crowd at the U.S.-India forum this month. 'Because I was sort of focused on the schooling part of it.' The two were married in 2014 in an outdoor wedding in Kentucky, near JD Vance's hometown, and spent the next decade crisscrossing the country. Along the way, Usha Vance gave birth to Ewan in 2017, Vivek in 2020 and Mirabel in 2021. Vance clerked for Judge Brett Kavanaugh in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and for Chief Justice Roberts, and worked for the law firm Munger, Tolles & Olson in San Francisco and Washington. JD Vance became a partner in a venture capital fund co-founded by Peter Thiel, a Silicon Valley billionaire and major Trump supporter. In 2017, the couple moved to Cincinnati, where Usha Vance worked remotely for Munger. The couple bought a big $1.4 million Victorian in East Walnut Hills, a liberal-leaning neighborhood. Vance joined the board of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and put Post-it notes on wine bottles to remind her husband which were the good ones to use for guests. A pivotal moment for Usha Vance came in 2018, when Christine Blasey Ford accused Kavanaugh, by then a Supreme Court nominee, of sexually assaulting her at a high school party nearly 40 years earlier. Kavanaugh denied the accusation and was narrowly confirmed, but friends say that Vance was outraged by Democratic attacks on a man she admired. 'My wife worked for Kavanaugh, loved the guy — kind of a dork,' JD Vance told New York Times columnist Ross Douthat last year. 'Never believed these stories.' When Vance became Trump's running mate in the summer of 2024, Usha Vance quit her job at Munger and threw herself into the vice presidential campaign. She and the children were often on the trail with him, and colleagues say she was a key part of the preparations for his debate with Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota. Usha Vance has largely stayed out of the fray over the administration's political and policy agenda, even as her husband has continued to be a polarizing figure. The one exception for Usha Vance was in March when she planned a trip to see a national dog sled race in Greenland, which Trump has said he wants to take over from Denmark. Vance made a cheerful video ahead of the trip, but it was ultimately downsized to a brief stop with her husband at a U.S. military base after strong objections from Greenlanders. In the coming months, Vance says she will continue to roll out second lady projects. For now, she continues to take her children to her office in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, the one with the view of the Washington Monument.
NDTV
2 days ago
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JD Vance's Wife Got To Know Of His Veep Nomination 5 Minutes Before Public
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2 days ago
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Second Lady Usha Vance has stepped into the national spotlight with unexpected candour, offering a warm and thoughtful glimpse into her family life, vegetarian upbringing, and Hindu faith. In a candid appearance on Meghan McCain's Citizen McCain podcast, she painted a picture of an interfaith household marked by openness, choice, and deep cultural respect. Reflecting on her interfaith marriage to Vice President JD Vance—who converted to Catholicism after the birth of their first child—Usha shared how they navigated the complexities of faith. 'We had to have a lot of real conversations about how do you do that, when I'm not Catholic, and I'm not intending to convert,' she said, explaining their decision to send their children to Catholic school while ensuring they have full access to Hindu traditions through family, books and travel With her husband JD Vance now a central figure in Donald Trump's Republican administration, Second Lady Usha Vance has begun carving out a public identity of her own. In an extended conversation with Meghan McCain, Usha opened up about family life, her Hindu faith, her upbringing as a vegetarian, and how the Vance children are being raised with elements of both parents' traditions. 'They know that I'm not Catholic. .. They have plenty of access to the Hindu tradition,' Usha explained. Love story that started in law school Usha first met JD Vance during a tour at Yale Law School, where they were in the same classes and became fast friends. 'He was just obviously really good friend material right off the bat,' she recalled. 'It really was... in our second semester when he started to talk more about where he was from... that I started to think of him in this different way.' Usha Vance Opens Up: Her First Extended Interview on Life as Second Lady with Meghan McCain Although author Amy Chua, famed as the "Tiger Mom," is often cited in their love story, Usha clarified: 'She wasn't instrumental in us dating... but she was really important later on,' especially in helping JD realise that pursuing happiness—including their relationship—was more important than chasing elite clerkships. Interfaith Marriage: Conversations, choices, and catholic school When JD converted to Catholicism after their first child was born, it prompted serious discussions. 'We had to have a lot of real conversations about how do you do that, when I'm not Catholic, and I'm not intending to convert.' The Vance children now attend Catholic school but are allowed to make their own decision on baptism. 'Our oldest child has done that... We make going to church a family experience. The kids know that I'm not Catholic. ' Usha said the children are also immersed in Hindu culture through family, books and travel. 'They know many practising Hindus... Their main point of access is through spending time with my parents and my grandmother.' Though the family doesn't mark many Hindu festivals formally at home, the children connect with their heritage through visits and stories. 'My grandmother is a particularly devout Hindu... She prays every day, goes to the temple, does her own pujas." Usha said she hopes to change that in future: 'We're actually hoping to have a Holi party, so we're looking forward to that next year.' Life as a vegetarian—and JD's culinary experiments Raised in a vegetarian household, Usha said she's always thought of meals holistically. 'It's really hard to think about vegetarian diets as substituting for meat... the better way is to have a number of smaller things on your plate.' When they began dating, JD took it upon himself to learn vegetarian cooking. 'The first place that he went was actually to my mum to learn how to make some of the dishes that I enjoyed.' Today, he's known in the family for his chocolate chip cookies and Southern-style biscuits. 'He makes amazing biscuits... He's made some really good cakes, so those are my favourites.' Parenting in the public eye Raising children under the glare of politics and media hasn't been easy. Usha said they try to maintain normal routines. 'They have to put away their laundry... If they spill something, they have to clean it up.' She said the goal is to give them as grounded a life as possible: 'Almost every decision that we make is directed at making it as much like what it would have been like if they'd been growing up in Cincinnati.' Reflecting on a rapid life change When JD was named vice president, everything changed in an instant. 'We had to suddenly move hotel rooms... There was really no opportunity for reflection.' Only after the inauguration did Usha have time to think about how she wanted to use her new platform. 'Now actually, this is maybe truly the fun part... where I can start bringing projects to the light.'
