Support literacy!

Growing up, I was always encouraged by my parents to read. I have many fond memories of cuddling up on their big bed while they read me story books I'd borrowed from the class library.

Although I had an allowance that I was supposed to use to buy things I wanted for myself, books were always an exception. Pretty much every time the Scholastic book catalogue/order forms came from the school, I could count on getting at least a book or two. They also gave me extra pocket money to buy books from the school library book fairs.

Most recently, last year, they gave me a Kobo eReader for a Christmas present.

Not only did my parents support my reading habits, but I was also lucky to go to schools close by public libraries. In junior high school and the years in high school before my brother and I got a car, I often spent the couple of hours after school waiting for my father to come pick me up at the library.

Since reading has been and continues to be a big part of my life, I strongly believe in the importance of encouraging reading and literacy, particularly in children.

So here are some great and easy ways that I've come across to support literacy in your local community and around the world:

Indigo Adopt a School (Sept 11-Oct 1, 2011)

Did you know that most of our school budgets don't allow for one book per child?

The Indigo Adopt a School program helps puts more books in the hands of children by partnering with the Indigo Love of Reading Foundation. Its power is in the grassroots outreach between Indigo stores and a school in their community they raise money for. To date, we have raised over $533,000 to put more than 46,000 books into the hands of children at 305 schools across Canada. 

1. Choose a local school to support.
We’ve identified over 150 schools across Canada that need your help. For every 100 supporters of your school, Indigo will give a book to its library.

2. Give books by donating, or buying an Indigo e-gift card. 
For every $25 gift card purchased, Indigo will donate one book to your school - you can redeem the full value in any Indigo Chapters Coles store or at chapters.indigo.ca. You can also make a direct donation - every $12 will give a book.

3. Become a top fundraiser by spreading the word.
Tell your family & friends and get credit for every person that gives a book. The top fundraiser for each school gets a $25 Indigo gift card. Top three fundraisers in Canada will receive a Kobo eReader!

We Give Books

Sign up to read children's books online for FREE. One book will be donated to a campaign of your choice for each book you finishing reading online. Read classics such as "The Tale of Peter Rabbit," "Madeline" and "The Snowy Day," or new titles such as "You Can't Go to School Naked" and "Goodnight Goon."

Better World Books

Better World Books collects and sells books online to fund literacy initiatives worldwide. With more than 8 million new and used titles in stock, we’re a self-sustaining, triple-bottom-line company that creates social, economic and environmental value for all our stakeholders.


All books are available with free shipping worldwide. And in case you're concerned about your eco-footprint, every order shipped from Mishawaka is carbon balanced with Green-e Climate certified offsets from 3Degrees, a leading green power and carbon balancing services firm.

Here’s the best part: In addition to selling new titles, Better World Books supports book drives and collects used books and textbooks through a network of over 1,800 college campuses and partnerships with over 2,000 libraries nationwide. So far, the company has converted more than 53 million books into over $8.6 million in funding for literacy and education. In the process, we’ve also diverted more than 26,000 tons of books from landfills.

Because we believe that most every book has lasting value and the potential to help change the world, we see our job as helping to find new homes for unwanted books. Thus far, we’ve donated 3.3 million books to partner programs around the world. Our five primary literacy partners are Books for Africa, Room to Read, Worldfund, the National Center for Family Literacy, and Invisible Children. Good company, no doubt.

Every book purchased from Better World Books contributes to individual literacy throughout the world and the promise of a better life. Clearly, we can’t do this work without our customers. That's why we’re so passionate about trying to offer the best price, selection, customer service, and overall shopping experience.

[For a true story about Better World Books' superior customer service check out my blog post from July 11, 2009: http://melt-in-japan.blogspot.com/2009/07/superior-customer-service.html.]

Do nothing vacation

Sometimes it's important to take a holiday just to take a holiday. ^_^

When I first booked this Friday (tomorrow, Sep. 24) off, I was originally considering going to Hiroshima. Then I realized that I probably wouldn't have the money or energy to do so between my trips to Takayama in Gifu (night of Thu. Oct. 7th to Mon. Oct. 11th for the apparently fairly famous Takayama Matsuri!!) and Canada (Dec. 23-Jan. 5 for Christmas vacation, then again in Jan. 21-24 for a friend's wedding). And besides, I already went to Hiroshima once this year when my best buds visited in Mar.-Apr.

But I never got around to canceling my holiday request, and in the end I just decided that it'd be good to take a break.

And so far, so good!!

Today the only "productive" things I did were doing the laundry (a load of darks) and going to taiko practice. Other than that I wrote emails, went on Facebook, and read Koko Be Good and stated re-reading Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book.

Koko Be Good is the debut (full) graphic novel of Jen Wang (she has previously had short comics published in the first and second volumes of the Flight graphic novel series). I first became aware of Jen Wang's work back around 1999-2000 when I started reading her awesome awesome webcomic Strings of Fate (1999-2003) the archives of which are sadly no longer available online. =(

But anyway, Koko Be Good--buy it! From the inside flap: "Honest, wrenching, and sharply funny, Jen Wang's Koko Be Good is a stunning debut about human nature and the inhuman efforts we make to find ourselves."

The graphic novel is quite different from the original short comic of the same name (which you can read on her website, just look under Art→Comics)--but in a good way. For me it really resonated because, like so many of the characters in the story, I'm at a stage where I'm trying to figure out what I really want to do with my life. And seeing so many of my friends finding their paths and/or settling down and getting married/having kids, I feel a lot of self-imposed pressure to "not to get left behind or something." So the story really speaks to me and it's definitely a book I expect to be re-reading a lot (which is really important when you live in a tiny apartment with only a single bookshelf).

So yeah, back to my original topic...Sometimes it's really important to just take time to relax. This week, Kocho-sensei (at Kirita) mentioned that I've been less than "genki" recently and he asked if I've been really busy/working too hard. Right now actually isn't the busiest at work that I've been, but since I'm doing both Nihonbuyo (classical Japanese dance) and taiko (Japanese drumming) now, I guess I haven't had as much "do nothing" time to refresh myself as in the past, so I'm less energetic...

Plus, much as I hate to admit it, I *am* getting older. I really can't survive on just konbini bread for dinner and 4-6 hrs of sleep per night like I used to be able to...

But anyway, I'm definitely going to enjoy the rest of this long weekend by sleeping in, reading, surfing the net, taking naps, "studying" at my favourite cafe/restaurants and maybe even cooking!