International Book Giving Day – Join in with my Children’s Book Swap

Today is International Book Giving Day. I wrote about it last year, but if you haven’t heard of it before, it’s about getting books in the hands of as many children as possible. A terribly sad statistic is that 1 in 8 children do not own a book; how devastating is that? I guess with 4.5 million children in this country now living in poverty, if you struggle to feed and clothe your child, sadly books are perhaps not a priority. But it seems so wrong that so many children do not own a book.

Book Giving day in an international day and this is about children across the globe not just in the UK. If you want to help some children there are lots of charities listed on the International Book Giving Day’s website, you could also be a book giver and leave a book out and about on your adventures for someone to find and enjoy. Just take a book, attach a label which can be printed from the website and leave them in a school, on the bus, in the doctor’s surgery – just somewhere someone can find it.

In the same vein, I am launching a book swap this month, which I would love for you to join in with.

Children’s Book Swap

The idea of the book swap is for you to give a book and your child(ren) receive one. You don’t have to buy one, you can simply pass on a book your child already has – as long it is in reasonably good condition.

Here’s how it works:

• It is open for all children aged newborn to 17 years
• For every child you wish to swap a book for you must provide a book for a recipient. For example if you have 3 children and wish for them all to participate, then you must send out 3 books – these may be to different addresses
• Books do not have to be new, but must be in good condition
• Open to residents in the UK only
• To participate please email the following information to Lovelylaurasblog@gmail.com by 14th March 2019:
  • Your name, postal and email address
  • How many children you would like to participate and their ages and interests
  • I will try my best to match people with similar ages children, but depending on participants this might not be possible. In the event I cannot match you with a suitable swapper, I will email you and let you know. If you are happy to send a book to any age of child please do let me know as this may make things easier!
  • Books must be sent out by 14th April 2019

For the interests of GDPR, I will only keep everyone’s details until the book swap is complete and then I will delete all emails. Your postal address and email address will be passed on to your book swap partner(s) in case of questions – you may wish to ask them what books they already have for instance and any delivery queries.

If the book swap is successful, I hope to repeat it later in the year too.

Happy swapping and I really hope you will join in. Do please tag me on social media when you join in as I would love to see what you get!

If you fancy an adult book swap or stationery swap (I love this one and I am participating in the current one running) do head over to Jocelyn on The Reading Residence.