Tuesday Blurb: Shifting Gears and Thinking Ahead

Welcome back from what I hope was a long, enjoyable weekend with family and friends. I was looking at the calendar yesterday and realized there aren’t many moments without family and friends from here on into 2011. They are either on my mind, as I rack my brain for gift ideas (oh, those tricky teenagers) or prepare for social gatherings.

As we are all pretty busy, I will keep this short and sweet …

Yesterday I made the official theme announcement for the 2011 Share a Story-Shape a Future literacy blog tour. We are Unwrapping the Gift of Literacy.  Given the theme, we thought it would be fun to have a logo contest. If you were “picturing” the idea of unwrapping the gift of literacy, what would it look like? Visit http://www.share-a-story-shape-a-future.net/ to learn more. [We have our own URL now!!]

On a related note, if you’d like to participate by offering ideas, hosting or sponsoring a giveaway, please email me. terry [at] thereadingtub [dot] com. Just put Share a Story in the subject line so I get to it faster.

2011 will be here before we know it, and I am now putting together the calendar for the I Can Read Carnival celebrating new readers. Zoe Toft is going to have the December Carnival up soon and she’s already signed on for next year … If you are interested or have questions, send an email to thereadingtub [at] gmail [dot] com. I Can Read has its own page on the blog now so you can see what months are available and also go directly to previous roundups, too!

The bloggers behind Buy Books for the Holidays have launched their 2010 campaign and have already started offering book ideas, a holiday bookmark swap, book tours (European and Nigerian authors so far), and the Reading in Color Book Exchange. Plus you can browse all of the shopping lists of holidays past.

Last but not least …

I know that you are probably bombarded with requests to give money here and support this organization there. The Reading Tub doesn’t ask for money and we don’t apply for grants (we’re too small for the amount of work involved). We rely almost exclusively on passive fundraising (i.e., income earned through our affiliate relationships).

When doing your holiday shopping, please consider using one of the links below when it’s time to make your purchases. It doesn’t cost you a penny extra and it helps us keep the Reading Tub website running and pays for postage to ship books to other nonprofits working directly with at-risk readers.

• More than 1,500 merchants participate in Goodshop (a service of Goodsearch). You’ll get all the great deals you see advertised elsewhere, as well as special coupons to save you money … and up to 30% of your purchase will go to your favorite cause. Just select the Reading Tub (Keswick Virginia)
• We use income from this Amazon.com link to cover shipping costs related to getting books to at-risk readers.
• We have opened two webstores (Amazon stores): Books for Your Home Library and Seasons and Themes. So if your stuck for ideas, this might be a spot to browse.
• If you are book shopping and want to support independent booksellers, then we’d love it if you used our IndieBound affiliate link.

Happy Tuesday all!