Read a book. Give a book.

Reading Buddies: If your library has a Reading Buddy program that partners young children with older readers, have a We Give Books themed Reading Buddy day where everyone reads a text from the We Give Books site.

Reading Games: We have developed a series of reading games targeting K-1 literacy skills. Visit our site to share these games with the adults who read to children in your community.

A Day of Giving: Expose young children to the rewards of helping others by organizing an event highlighting helping others. Use the We Give Books site to read Zack the Yak by John Wood, a story about a yak in Nepal who delivers books to poor schools. Discuss how Zak’s contributions helped real children, how Zak felt to be able to help so many people, and how the children felt after receiving the books. Explain that the We Give Books website makes it very easy to donate books to children who need them. Take time to look at the different donation campaigns. Have children and their adult register for the site and read through another book, allowing the child to donate another book to people in need. If your community has organizations that offer volunteer opportunities for children, invite them to present to the group as well to bring home the idea of helping others in your neighborhood.

Read Around the Subject: Encourage independent readers to browse the full selection of available titles. For example, if the topic is snow, a child might read The Snowy Day, Snowmen at Christmas, The Three Snow Bears, and Snowmen at Night. After reading all of the We Give Books snow titles, the child extends their reading to books at the library. Using the graphic organizer, the child reflects on what stood out for them in each title. They can also create some kind of culminating project to synthesize their experience of the topic.

Reading Marathon: Readers choose a campaign to support and read as many books as possible over a pre-determined length of time. To track titles read, readers log the book title, author, and a one sentence summary of the book’s plot in a reading journal, which can be a piece of paper or a Google Doc.

Youth Book Review Blog: What better critic of a children’s book than a child? Set up a blog for young readers to review different titles on the We Give Books site. If you like, youth can use this template for their reviews.

They should remember to link to the campaign they chose!

The Best of We Give Books: If you have a group of children who meet at the library, consider tasking them with creating a “Best of” list from the available titles. Categories might include best illustrations, funniest book, best bug book, saddest book, etc. Encourage them to come up with their own categories as well! Once the list of categories has been finalized, the children choose a campaign and read through the available titles. Working together, they nominate the titles they think best fit the categories. The top 3-4 books per category get put on the ballot. The group then votes, tallies, and reveals the winners at an Awards Party. Winning titles can be recommended to other young readers and promoted at the library.

Youth Book Review Blog: What better critic of a children’s book than a child? Set up a blog for young readers to review different titles on the We Give Books site. If you like, youth can use this template for their reviews.

As young adults, they should consider the book from an adult perspective. Is this a book they would want their little brother, sister, or cousin to read? What does the story teach about life? Are any of the character interactions problematic or questionable? They should also remember to link to the campaign they chose!

Readers Theatre: In small groups, have young adults select a book to perform for younger readers. They should make a list of characters in the book, including the narrator, and assign parts. Then each should read through the story paying particular attention to their role, making notes about character traits, emotions, and what gestures they can use to enhance their reading performance. The group should rehearse their dramatic reading of the book many times until they are very confident in the vocal and physical performance. The young adults can perform for an elementary school class, day care center, children’s group, or for their families!

Reading Games Workshop: We Give Books has developed a series of reading games designed to help K-1 children develop their reading skills while having fun. Host a parent workshop showing them the We Give Books website, exploring the library of free titles and other online resources. Then, break everyone into groups to practice a different reading game as if they were their children. Reconvene the group to share what they liked, what could be improved upon, and things they would keep in mind when playing this game with their children.