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Hip, Hip, Hooray! Today is World Book Day!

World Book Day is a celebration of authors, illustrators, books and (most importantly) it’s a celebration of reading. In fact, it’s the biggest celebration of its kind, designated by UNESCO as a worldwide celebration of books and reading, and marked in over 100 countries all over the world.

And to celebrate it here on Playing by the book, I’ve teamed up with the brilliant author and illustrator Katie Cleminson to raise funds for Book Aid International.

Book Aid International increases access to books and supports literacy, education and development in sub-Saharan Africa. Last year I raised funds for them by carrying out a Librarithon with M and J. This year, you can once again donate to Book Aid International via my Just Giving page:

http://www.justgiving.com/Zoe-Toft.

To help me reach my fundraising target Katie Cleminson, one of Booktrust’s Best New Illustrators 2011, and the creator of Box of Tricks, Wake Up!, and Otto the Book Bear, has donated this original, signed illustration:

This wonderful illustration (inspired by the traditional fundraising game, Guess the Number of Sweets in the Jar, with Otto the Book Bear looking on lovingly) is approximately 12cm x 15cm and is drawn in ink, watercolour, and charcoal. It was drawn with a pipette, and a fine nib.

It could be yours!

How? Simple! Make a donation to Book Aid, via my Just Giving page, and then come back here and guess the number of books in my house today (March 1st 2012). The person with the number nearest to the correct answer wins Katie’s amazing illustration.

Practicalities: To enter this free prize draw simply leave a comment on this post with your best guess as to the number of books in my home.

Technically speaking (because of the intricacies of UK Gambling law) I cannot require you to make a donation to Book Aid to enter this free prize draw, so theoretically speaking you can enter the prize draw simply by leaving a comment on this post… BUT Katie and I have teamed up because

Last Friday saw our final push to hit our Librarithon target of 14 Libraries in 3 different counties. We hopped on a train that whisked us through fields of horses, much to the delight of M and J, before ending up in a small, beautiful city, home to our 13th library.

It has a pretty grand entrance!

Inside they had just finished a major building programme and so lots of the library was bare, but the bits still fully functioning were lovely – the great big windows were super for filling the space with light (the building was formerly a school).

As you can see we were wearing wonderful Book Aid T-shirts – the girls were really proud of them and we did get stopped and asked a few times by “the general public” as to what we were up to.

Back on the train to a small, cute village and then we played hunt the library. M’s reading has really come on in the last few months and reading road signs is a favourite hobby of hers – one well indulged by all the time we’ve spent on buses this last week.

Our 14th library is open two and a half days a week. It’s not under threat, but the husband of the librarian I spoke to works for the library system in the neighbouring county where libraries are at risk of closure so I got to hear about the personal impact of the uncertainty and how stressful that is for those involved.

We spent a good hour and a half in this library reading stories including more Captain Flinn but one of my favourite books was Ivy Loves to Give by Freya Blackwood. The illustrations were so beautiful and the story came straight out of our own home – M and and J are always wrapping up little gifts (usually in toilet paper), which 9 times out of 10, are, um, let’s agree they are will intentioned but not the usual sort of thing you’d give as a gift (a drawing pin, a cork, a twig).

Eventually it was time for us to leave. I asked the girls what they thought of our Librarithon…

3 Comments on The final Librarithon round-up, last added: 2/28/2011