Getting Books to Kids – All in a Day’s Search

Tomorrow, John Scieszka, National Ambassador for Children’s Literature kicks off Children’s Book Week in New York. This year marks the 90th anniversary of this celebration of children’s literature and reading, and there are official events throughout the country.

Our goal every day is to find ways to engage and connect kids with books and reading.  Several years ago, I created the Use Your ABCs project as a school-based initiative to connect struggling readers with books.  In a nutshell …

Use Your ABCs offers students the opportunity to develop literacy on several levels: practice reading and comprehension, and apply those skills to effective communication with critical thinking and writing. The project’s purpose is to promote reading as a “real life” skill that helps them in arenas far beyond the classroom.

Each year, we ship books to classrooms across the country. Some books go to teachers in Title I schools, others go to middle-school and high-school teachers working with students reading below grade level.  Frankly, I think it is one of the most important things we do.

This year during Children’s Book Week, we’re going to do something a little different. Rather than host a contest, we want to get books to at-risk readers.

In 2008, we shipped 480 books to teachers for Use Your ABCs. In 2007, it was 273 books … 56% growth in one year. Typically, we send 20-30 books per class, so that each student has a new book. This past week,  Cathy Miller, one of our Directors, spent some of her time at the International Reading Association conference talking about Use Your ABCs, and we already have twenty new applicants for the program!

We have the books and the boxes … now we need the postage.  I’m not a fan of big fancy fundraisers, and given that the only expense for Use Your ABCs is postage, it seems only logical to fund it with a grassroots way to fund it.

This is where you can help.  Please click the Goodsearch badge or grab a copy of it for your blog or website. When you use Goodsearch, the Reading Tub can earn a penny every time you search the Internet. We can also earn a percentage of every purchase you made online.

Shipping costs 69c per book. Soit doesn’t take too many searches  to help us  connect a struggling reader with a new book.   Our goal during Children’s Book Week is to raise $207 … that will let us ship 300 books to readers-in-need.

We all use search engines, so why  not double the return on your investment: you get the info you need, we can get books to kids. So whether you search with Goodsearch for an hour, use it for a day, or even a couple of days, thanks!

If you are interested in applying for the Use Your ABCs program, please send me an email [thereadingtub [at] gmail [dot] com] and I can send you the form.