MotherReader

I’ll tell you, I am feeling like Santa today. I’ve been giving away books, and boy does it feel good. First let me send out a huge Thank You to the publishers who sent books for the Cybils — in this year and previous ones — which allowed me to give away so many books to kids who need them.

Last week I pulled together collections of the Cybils-nominated picture books to give away two sets of books in the ABC Giveaway. One set is on its way to a librarian in Utah, who was excited to have some new titles to add to their small library collection. Another set will be on its way soon to a school librarian in Baltimore — she let me hold back a few titles until I’m done reviewing them. When all is said and done, that will be fifty books finding new homes.

Then today I called a local charity to see if they might be able to use books to give to the kids in the community. As it turns out, their holiday gift giveaway is this afternoon, and they were thrilled to have new hardcover picture books (and a few chapter books) for the kids. I had put together a full box already, but when I heard that these books were going as holiday gifts, I quickly perused my shelves to find more fun titles. When I dropped them off, the volunteers were so grateful that I felt amazing. I’ll definitely be back there with more books.

And as if all of that weren’t enough, I also received some thank you letters from a class that I supported through Donors Choose. I’ll have to figure out how to scan these and post them, because they are so touching. For now, I give you the note in one card, written in highlighter in alternating colors of yellow, pink, and orange: “Thank you for the book. I injoy the Book. I Love the story about Molly the Bavre Brave Me.” I had to look that one up to find a sweet beginning reader, Molly the Brave and Me, and btw, the student crossed out “brave” and corrected it. So cute. I can’t plug this charity group enough, as it supports teachers who write up requests for what they need in the classroom. Plus, they send you letters, which makes you want to donate more!

For one of the richest counties in the nation, I live near to some areas of poverty, making it easy to find places to donate books. (It’s much harder for me to get my act together to actually donate those books, but that’s a whole other issue.) But for those of you who would like to have places to send books, consider the international list of charities over at Playing by the Book.

Of course, in talking about giving away books, I can’t skip the fun in giving books to nieces, nephews, cousins, second cousins, teachers, friends, Girl Scouts, and the crossing guard. I should probably give some to the mailman to thank him for carrying all of my books to me from the publisher. Who will you give a book to this holiday season?