Tuesday, February 4, 2014

Official book club stamp!

One of the suggestions from A Mighty Girl's book club organizing guide was to consider buying two copies of each book (so Mom and Daughter can both read without sharing the same copy).  After finishing that selection, one copy could be donated to a classroom library, community group, etc.  My daughter has the most fabulous teacher (shout out to Ms. Anastasia, if you are reading this!) and we are going to donate a copy of each book to her classroom library.  I also lost a dear friend last month who was a school secretary at a local elementary school and I want to donate books in her name as well.  She was an incredible champion of children's literacy.  She organized reading volunteers to come in from the community and help the kids read, set up reading challenges with neighboring schools, and even lead a project to paint the school's library to look like a bejeweled castle.  Amazing.  When she passed, the family requested donations be made to the school library in her honor.  So now the Girls With Opinions book club will participate in this effort as well.  Because donations to school libraries are complicated (they need to be a special binding, outfitted with barcodes, etc.), school libraries don't often accept book donations.  However, there are many teachers at the school who have classroom libraries that could use some new material.  I asked the school librarian to suggest a teacher (of an appropriate grade level for our books) that might like a set.  This will benefit the children of Sinclair and allow us to donate our special books ;)

I spent far too much time looking on Etsy for the perfect stamp to mark the donated books as well as the ones that will remain in our collection.  I had about 20 contenders, but I kept coming back to Magnolia Letter Arts.  After I placed the order I learned the shop owner and her mom are both reading teachers.  So cool.  

I don't know about anyone else, but I was all about finding treasures/secrets/secret clubs as a kid.  I can imagine in my mind's eye how fun it will be for the kids who pick one of our books off the shelf, to find this stamp on the inside cover:


I will bring the stamp and a stamp pad to each meeting and the girls can stamp their books if they wish.  All our books donated to classroom libraries will be stamped.  Sinclair school classroom library donations will be stamped along with a message "donated in honor of Terisa Billingsley." 

I so wish I could share this idea with Terisa.  I know she would giggle like a school girl about how cute and fun it will be for the kids to find inside.  



No comments:

Post a Comment