Thursday, May 29, 2014

Too Many Books? Support Literacy!


Have you been doing your Spring/Summer Cleaning? Looking at piles of old books and not sure what to do with them? I know that is the predicament we recently found ourselves in at our home.

Growing up my daughter thought a bookstore was a toy store. Every parent's wish, right? Except try prying any of those treasured "toys" out of her hands and you were in for a battle! Our daughter would happily donate toy after toy without batting an eyelash, use her hard earned money to purchase groceries for the local food shelter, or buy Christmas gifts for families in need--but to her, each of her books was like a cherished friend. Needless to say over the years we ended up with dozens of brown boxes filled with books. It is also why I learned early on that going to the library was not an option for us because returning a book was a difficult task.

Now as I say this you are probably picturing an extremely spoiled child, which is the exact opposite of how I would describe my daughter. She is one of the most thoughtful individuals I have ever met. She is always looking for ways to help others. The truth of the matter is she just loves literature. Her books have been read and re-read many times over. It is a passion that has been passed down through the generations in my family. I imagine she sees her own child reading those same treasured stories years from now.

I can understand her wanting to keep these books for the future. However, she has kept everybook she has ever owned--including her school books. As parents, we were required to buy her textbooks each year for the high school she attended. Upon cleaning out her room we found four years of textbooks collecting dust. These are not the typical type of books you can donate. Curriculum changes too fast. What were we to do? We cannot abide the idea of throwing away books. We wanted to somehow donate them to a place that could make good use of them. If you knew my daughter, you'd know this was a mission for her to tackle. She immediately began an online search and came across betterworldbooks.com. She was able to print out a pre-paid shipping label and send her used books off to make a difference. According to their website, "We've re-used or recycled over 80 million pounds of books and raised over $10 million for global literacy and local libraries." What an amazing feat!

If you have novels or other literary works, I highly recommend donating these books to your classrooms, libraries, shelters, senior centers, etc. Books are always needed! It is important to expand the minds of children and adults, and these donations are often received with great enthusiasm. However, if you have old outdated textbooks you can still make a difference! Donate them to a worthy cause to help generate income that will still support literacy!

Wishing you all a little adventure,

K. Lamb
Author of the Dani P. Mystery series

http://www.danipmystery.com
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It's the adventures of Dani P.
Join her in her mysteries!

(Photo Source: http://mylearningspringboard.com/reading-specialists/)

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