FEED THE NEED TO READ or Practicing What I Preach from Sarah Reads Too Much

Practicing What I Preach

Not too long ago, I wrote a post about a new program at Swap.com called Swap4Schools. Just to sum it up again, it is a program for school teachers and librarians to sign up and list the books they would love to have in their classrooms (in some cases, the students are helping write the list). Users (like me) list books and DVDs that we are willing to trade, and the site will notify us if there are any classrooms looking for something we have. Then we are given the opportunity to donate our item directly to the school. The site even gives you the capability to print address labels and postage right at home, so you don't need to go to the post office. Personally, I think this is a great program. I have donated books to schools in the past, but always what I had on hand and hoping that it would be something the students would be interested in. Now I know I am getting a book that kids want right to their classroom. I hope that this helps at least one kid out there get excited about reading.


Talking about the program is great, but I needed to get some action behind my words. So I took two books off my shelf, and thought about what to do with them..... They are both popular books right now, and I could give them away on this blog - or even just trade them on swap.com (between the two books, I had my choice of nearly 100,000 items). But classrooms were requesting these books, and now I am happy to say that I am Number Four is on its way to a school in Arkansas, while Delirium is on its way to a school in Illinois. This isn't to say that I won't be giving away books like these in the future.... but maybe I'll try to keep a happy balance.


Please, take a look at the site and see if you might have anything a school could want. Also, if you know any teachers or librarians out there - let them know about the site, and how they could get books for their classrooms too!
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I've reposted this from Sarah Reads Too Much with her permission. This is also something I feel real strongly about. I have a friend who teaches in a lower income school where the students don't have a lot of extra money to spend to "fun" reads. She keeps a lending library in her homeroom where she provides "fun" reads, often out of her own pocket. I often pass along YA books that I've won or bought myself as a way of feeding the need to read. If you have YA books that need a home please check out this site Swap4Schools and donate. Please let Sarah know that thanks to her article you are helping to Feed the Need to Read!