Have you heard about World Book Night? Today, across America, and in the UK, Ireland & Germany, 25,000 book lovers will be giving free books to non-readers or low readers in their communities. We are instructed not to distribute these books at Book Clubs, or Libraries, or even our own bookstores, but rather to search out people who may have fallen out of the habit of reading. That kid on the bus glued to the game on his phone, the ones staring off into space killing time, but not the person who already has their nose in a book!
Bookstores across the country have been the receiving department for shipments of specially printed copies of 30 current titles. How many books? An astounding 2.5 million volumes!
Book Givers who signed up earlier this year, came to their local indie bookstore to pick up their cartons. This of course, was reason enough for a party!
More than 750 bookstores and libraries are hosting pre-World Book Night gatherings. Blue Willow Bookshop in Houston, Tex., is teaming up with Houston Public Media at an off-site event tonight that is both a reception for givers and a celebration of literacy. Andrea White, former First Lady of Houston and the author of four sci-fi novels for young readers, is hosting the soirée, and news reporter Edel Howlin is moderating a panel of literacy experts from the Houston Public Libraries and other organizations.
At Unabridged Bookstore in Chicago, Ill., local writers Richard Fox, Bryan Gruley, Jacqueline Edelberg, Keir Graff, Anne Elizabeth Moore and Patrick Somerville are headlining a party this Friday, April 20, and will be reading from their favorite titles on the World Book Night list. Givers received personal invites to the get-together, which is open to the public.
Already, stories are coming back in on
the blog. This one teared me up.
I chose Small Island as "my" book because my West London patch is home to the most amazing mixture of races and religions...
Acton isn't a rich area. I gave my books away in the Oaks shopping centre: home to Peacock and Pound shops. No books in sight. It's frankly scruffy and well overdue for a major refurbishment...
Maybe the best story was about the book I didn't give away. I asked a woman if she would like a copy of Small Island; would she promise to read it if I gave her one. "No" she said, "I'm 57 and I can't read nor write, I can't take your book" She wants to learn so much, she says, but how do you find out about where you can learn to read if you can't read? When she goes to the hospital or the bank, she says she has forgotten her glasses so other people fill in the forms for her. She told me she can't use trains as she can't read the stations. Her life is truly impoverished by her inability to read.
So, we have made a pact. I have her phone numbers. I will find her a local literacy scheme, get her on it and next year, she will take a World Book Night book - and read it for herself.
Sara World Book Night Giver
Here in
our little town bookstore, we had two givers sign up, a mother & daughter team, who will be giving the books to a local Homeless Shelter for teens and an Alternative High School for at-risk kids. The daughter is a school teacher so she knew exactly where these copies of The Hunger Games would have the most impact.
As an Independent Bookseller, this makes my heart swell. Visit the
World Book Night website and look at the names of those publishers & distributors that made it all possible. Carl Lennertz deserves a big hand for shepherding this program into the US for it's first year.
Feeling left out? You can sign up now and spend the next year making it an even bigger celebration. I for one, can't think of a better thing than putting a book in someone's hands and changing their life.
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