Let's Share the Love of Reading

Jim Schaefer

As people involved with the Eastern Michigan Writing Project, we want to encourage people of all ages to celebrate their reading and writing skills so they can develop their literacy.


A wonderful annual event on April 23, the World Book Night, has emerged to perform exactly this task—without costing those participating as book givers or book receivers even one penny!

All you need to do is to indicate an interest in handing out free books by signing up on the WBN web site (www.worldbooknight.org). You can select where and to whom you’ll distribute the books, plus which books you prefer on the WBN’s list for the year. The major guideline is to give them to people outside your own family.

In the week before the event, you will be notified where you will pick up your 20 books, and then you will be one of 25,000 volunteers who will distribute 500,000 books. I did this last year, and it was thoroughly enjoyable!