A Call to Action

     Hey y'all so I know I have been gone for a while but my life is crazy. I had a tournament two weeks ago and I am currently in Seattle doing the same thing. Now that we have excuses out of the way let's get to the reason I am writing this blog post. Now you guys know how much I love books. I wrote a post about how important books are, I do book reviews, and have over 200 books on my shelf. (If you think that's amazing did you know Thomas Jefferson had 6,487 books?) I always talk about how everyone should read but I have done nothing to ensure that people who can't afford books have access to them. I have thought about donating them to my public library but what if we could send it somewhere where they are needed. I mean we have 120,091 libraries in the United States! What about third world countries? Think about it. Most people in third world countries don't have access to libraries and if they do they aren't very big. Of course I am not under the delusion that I can provide books to everyone in the world but I can make a small difference. Shannon Ippolitot from cozyteareads has partnered with an organization whose goal is to create libraries in Africa. All you have to do is send them books and they will give these books to children in Africa. That's right there is a whole organization dedicated to making sure children in Africa can read!!!! 
     
      These are the books they are looking for:

           -Books at U.S 4th to 8th grade reading level. 

           -Juvenile literature 

           -Children’s fiction and non-fiction 

           -Teacher's resource books for school libraries 

           -Dictionaries 

           -Encyclopedias less than 15 years old 

           -Accurate up-to-date atlases 

           -Thesauruses 

           -Books with universal themes (friendships, animals, love) 

           -Books like Chicken Soup for the Soul (inspiring stories with life skills lessons) 

           -Books about Africa or African-Americans 

           -Educational kids science and literary magazines in good condition 

           -Brain teasers, flash cards, educational games and puzzles

     They also need about $500 to help ship the books. So you can donate money if you don't want to donate books. Here's a short cut. If you don't want to pay for shipping (because you are international or you have to buy books anyway and don't want to spend the extra money) go on the Book Depository Website (found here) which has free world wide shipping. Just put Shannon's address in instead of your own. Or if you don't mind spending money on shipping go to the Book Outlet (here) which has super cheap books but does have some shipping costs and again send it directly to Shannon. Shannon's address can be found here. Read the information then send Shannon and email with what you are going to do and also to get the exact address. I challenge every single one of you to send books to help these children. The deadline is May 15, 2014. I know I will be going through my bookshelf as well as sending an order from Book Outlet. And if all of my readers, few though you may be, send a couple books we will be able to make a difference. 

If you do send books let me know down in the comments.