The Alan Duff Charitable Foundation Duffy Books in Homes programme is a literacy programme aimed at breaking the cycle of booklessness amongst children at low decile schools throughout New Zealand.

The programme was developed following a visit by Alan Duff to Camberley School in Hastings in 1992. He found that the majority of those children came from bookless homes and showed little, if any, interest in reading. From this grew the key concept of book ownership prompting an interest in reading and a love of books. This would also create the opportunity to share the books with other family members.

The programme was initiated in Camberley School in 1992. Christine Fernyhough set up an office sponsored by Mainfreight (this arrangement continues today) and in 1995 The Alan Duff Charitable Foundation Books in Homes programme began.

The Foundation is registered with the Charities Commission (registration number CC30965) and more information can be found at www.charities.govt.nz

Since the official launch in 1995 with 80 schools, 16,000 students and 14 sponsors, the programme has grown to encompass almost 550 schools, around 100,000 students and more than 200 sponsors in 2011. By October 1999, more than 1,000,000 books had been distributed. The 2,000,000th book milestone was reached in June 2002. Now that figure has reached well over 7,000,000 and the Duffy Books in Homes programme has inspired offshoot programmes in the Pacific Islands, Australia and the USA.

Duffy Books in Homes celebrated its 15th anniversary in August 2010 and marked the occasion by showcasing some of the successes now being enjoyed by the original 'Duffy Kids'.  Such success stories include BMX champion Sarah Walker and Miss World NZ 2010 Cody Yerkovich.