Books! Glorious books! (And yes, I’m totally singing that in my head).
Over the last couple of weeks, packages of books have been trickling in for our Kiribati Library Project. Boxes crammed full of books. Books signed to the students in Kiribati by authors. Recent releases. Old classics. It has been beautiful to see!
And it’s not done yet. Capstone (my publisher) contacted me, and they’re sending a box, too! I am so thrilled, I just can’t even express it.
Last Tuesday, an unexpected delivery from Amazon arrived on our doorstep. Someone who had already sent us a big box of books had the entire Harry Potter series sent.
“The idea that we can introduce kids to these character and the worlds created on the page is pretty much my happy place.”
And I think she pretty much captured why I’m doing this. What an amazing thought! The Harry Potter series has given me countless hours of joy. And she will be giving that to these kids.
This will be my last call for donations (so back to regular programing starting next week). For those interested, you can either donate money at our GoFundMe account, or you can donate books. Just use the Contact Me tab for information on where to send them.
Since that first post, I have received a wish list of books from the library. We have received a few on the list, but I wanted to post it in case it inspires anyone out there to join in our cause.
That said, if you have books to donate that are not on this list, that is great, too! But this gives a good picture of the types of things they are looking for.
Thank you again for reading this post and for all the sharing and donations and well-wishes we’ve received on this project. Imagining these books in the hands of these students makes me so happy. Thank you!
Hardy Boys Series Franklin W. Dixon
Nancy Drew Series Carolyn Keene
The Littles Series John Peterson
Ramona Series Beverly Cleary
The Enchanted Forest Chronicles Patricia C. Wrede
Betsy-Tacy Books Maud Hart Lovelace
The Princess in Black and the
Perfect Princess Party Shannon Hale
Matilda Roald Dahl
Are You There God? It’s Me Judy Blume
Margaret
Harriet the Spy Louise Fitshugh
The Chocolate War Robert Cormier
The Hunger Game Series Suzanne Collins
(Need Hunger Games and Mockingjay)
The Giver Series Lois Lowry
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Douglas Adam
Anne of Green Gable Series L.M. Montgomery
Graceling Series Christine Cashore
The Sisterhood of TravelingPants Series Ann Brashares
Uglies Series Scott Westerfeld
Twilight Series Stephenie Meyer
The Princess Diary Series Meg Cabot
Song of the Lioness series Tamora Pierce
Vampire Academy Richelle Mead
Fable Haven Brandon Mull
The Goose Girl series Shannon Hale
The Princess Academy series Shannon Hale
(Need book 2 and 3)
Ever After High Shannon Hale
Daughter of the Lioness / Tricksters series Tamora Pierce
Percy Jackson series Rick Riordan
The Red Pyramid Series Rick Riordan
The Chronicles of Narnia C.S. Lewis
Leviathan series Scott Westerfeld
His Dark Material Series Philip Pullman
The Mortal Instruments series Cassandra Clare
Fallen series Lauren Kate
Septimus Heap Series Angie Sage
The Maze Runner series James Dashner
Crank series Ellen Hopkins
Matched series Ally Condie
Discworld / Tiffany Aching series Terry Pratchett
Chaos Walking series Patrick Ness
Circle of Magic series Tamora Pierce
Wrinkle in Time Series Madeleine L’Engle
Roll of Mildred Taylor
Thunder Hear my Cry Series
(Need Let the Circle Be unbroken, and The Road to Memphis)
Looking for Alaska John
Green
The Hobbit J.R.R.
Tolkien
The Catcher in the Rye J.D.
Salinger
To Kill a Mockingbird Harper
Lee
The Book Thief Markus
Zusak
The Outsiders S.E. Hinton
The Princess Bride William Goldman
Thirteen Reasons Why Jay Asher
The Curious Incident of a Dog in the
Nighttime Mark Haddon
Stargirl Jerry Spinelli
The House on Mango Street Sandra Cisneros
The Truth About Forever Sarah Dessen
The
Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane Kate
DiCamillo
Tuck Everlasting Natalie Babbitt
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time
Indian Sherman
Alexie
13 Little Blue Envelopes Maureen Johnson
It’s Kind of a Funny Story Ned Vizzini
Just Listen Sarah Dessen
A Ring of Endless Light Madeleine L’Engle
Before I Fall Lauren Oliver
Unwind Neal Shusterman
The Last Unicorn Peter S. Beagle
If I Stay Gayle Forman
The Blue Sword Robin McKinley
The Hero and the Crown Robin
McKinley
Beauty Robin
McKinley
I Am the Messenger Markus Zusak
Go Ask Alice by Anonymous Beatrice
Sparks
Daughter of Smoke & Bone Laini Taylor
The House of the Scorpion Nancy Farmer
Wintergirls Laurie Halse Anderson
Lafayette in the Somewhat
United States Sarah
Vowell
Holes Louis
Sachar
The Phantom Tollbooth Norton
Juster
The Diary of Anne Frank Otto
Frank
Wonder R.
J. Palacio
Out of My Mind Sharon
M. Draper
Bridge to Terabithia Katherine
Patterson
Jacob Have I loved Katherine
Patterson
A Separate Peace John
Knowles
Hatchet Gary
Paulsen
Princess Bride William
Goldman
The Westing Game Ellen
Raskin
Number the Stars Lois
Lowery
Boxers and Saints Gene
Luen Yag
The Lost Conspiracy Francise
Hardinge
Esperanza Rising Pam
Munoz Ryan
Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of
Nimh Robert
C. Obrian
The invention of Hugo Cabret Brian
Selznick
With all the terrible things that have happened throughout the world over the past few days, it can be easy to forget that there is good in the world, too. While I know it doesn’t change what happened, or fix things for those who are suffering right now, I want to tell you about a little of that goodness.
Last week I reached out to you–to the world of social media. I didn’t know what to expect, but you all blew me away between the sharing of my post, the offers to send books, and the monetary donations. I haven’t received the books yet, so I can’t show you a picture of that, but here’s a peek at the GoFundMe page:
People are good and kind and generous. They reach out to strangers. They offer help in the ways they can. People I didn’t even know donated money. People I’ve never met are shipping off books.
Thank you! Thank you so much for being you. For being generous humans who spread good in the world. Thank you! I can’t express how touched I’ve been at your support.
For any who would still like to participate, we will be collecting books and donations over the next couple of months. For more information, please visit the original post that explains it all.
Now, one more thing. My 11-yo wanted to write in support of the cause, and I promised I would post it for him:
Dear readers,Hello.
To you readers, I ask you this, how would you feel if you had almost no books to read? I would feel devastated, it would make me less curious, although that
might not sound bad to you, take some time to imagine what that amounts to: . .
. now that you have thought about it, I hope you realize the full gravity of
helping those children on Kiribati.Imagine
how thankful they’ll feel to have such a great gift to enjoy and share. I hope
you know to expect nothing but an unseen and unheard thank you along with the
knowledge that you helped someone besides yourself.I
sincerely hope now that you will help those children.Signed,11-yo. J.
Before I leave you, I want to give a heard and seen THANK YOU for your help.