Launching the Haiti Series with One Moore Book

This weekend LitWorld celebrated a new partnership with One Moore Book at the launch event of their new book collection, the Haiti series. 

One Moore Book publishes culturally sensitive and educational stories for children of countries with low literacy rates and underrepresented cultures. The books also serve as a key to unknown people and places for all children who do not have access to cultures outside of their own.

Part of the proceeds from Saturday's launch event will deliver the Haiti Series books to the children at LitWorld's newest Innovation Hub Site in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. We can't wait for the girls and boys to read these magical stories.

To learn more about One Moore Book and the Haiti Series visit onemoorebook.com.

The Stand in the Schoolhouse Door - Pam Allyn's Latest HuffPost Blog

"Today, on Martin Luther King Day, we honor the passing on Thursday of a civil rights hero, James A. Hood, who integrated the University of Alabama in 1963 together with a fellow student Vivian Malone. This seminal moment when they entered the university to defend civil rights became known as the "stand in the schoolhouse door.

All around the world, every day, the school bell rings. Children come into their classrooms, and seek the smile of their teacher, ready for the promise of a new day, to learn to read, write, think and grow. We hold these images as metaphors for the precious rights that belong to all children, as a symbol of our democracy which provides sanctuary for our children to become who they want to be, to dream dreams that can be fulfilled by their education

Today, January 21, I am joining with One Million Moms for Gun Control to walk in a rally to call attention to the need to create a safer, nonviolent world for children."

Click here to read the full piece.

LitWorld Celebrates and Honors Martin Luther King Jr.

As we celebrate the life of Martin Luther King Jr., let us take time to read his words, and take renewed breath for the work ahead of us in 2013, the work that will lead to a more just and humane world for all children.

Martin Luther King Jr. said, in response to his highly controversial position against the Vietnam War: "I have worked too long now, and too hard to get rid of segregation in public accommodations to turn back to the point of segregating my moral concern. Justice is indivisible. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. And wherever I see injustice, I'm going to take a stand against it whether it's in Mississippi or in Vietnam."

Let's today, tomorrow and the days after that, in his memory, fight together for equality, opportunity and justice for all children whether they be in New York, Detroit, Kibera, Kumasi, Manila, or Port au Prince. All our world's children deserve the human right of safe and secure quality education to fulfill their dreams.

To Uganda We Go!

Jeff and Prisca are LitWorld's Regional Coordinators at our Innovation Hub Site in Kibera, Kenya. They are representing LitWorld at the Ugandan Community Library Association's annual conference, and will be doing a two day training session for future LitClub leaders from 7 community libraries across Uganda.

We are so excited for this journey and grateful to have superstar LitWorld Ambassadors who exemplify the highest values for children, and for literacy as a human right. Our first Ugandan LitClubs will launch this winter!

An New and Exciting Endeavor Between LitWorld and the University of Oklahoma

Today LitWorld's Creative Director, Dorothy Lee video talked with a group of interns from the University of Oklahoma's Center for the Creation of Economic Wealth (CCEW). This team of 5 undergraduate students and their mentor, Rahnuma Ahmed, will be working with us all semester to think about how we can expand and deepen the work at our Innovation Hub Sites. We video chatted for an hour and a half or so of their all-day CCEW Internship Boot Camp. They are raring to go and we are excited for the learning ahead!

March 6, 2013 is World Read Aloud Day!

Celebrate World Read Aloud Day with us to advocate for every child's right to read.

This year we're taking World Read Aloud Day on the road and LitWorld's first ever WRAD bus tour could be coming to your school. If you want the LitWorld team to visit your school, get started on your contest entry today. Click here to apply.

World Read Aloud Day is for all people, of all ages. Are you an educator organizing an author chat for your class? A teen hosting a book swap? A kid throwing a pajama party? A business leader ready to motivate your team? A parent who wants to take action?

Our Event Kit and Activity Packet have everything you need to start planning your celebration. Download them here.

Don't forget to register for WRAD and spread the word on Facebook and Twitter using the hashtag #ReadAloud in your tweets!

The Cat is Out of the Bag!

LitWorld Innovation Hub Sites are launching in Haiti and the Philippines in 2013! 

Our approach cherishes children's own stories as a powerful force for learning to read and write, and experiencing the world with resilience and joy.

Please help us support our Innovation Hub Sites so that we can reach more children than ever before in 2013.

Join LitWorld's pro-child movement: Donate today.

Today is the Day of the Child's Story - An Urgent Call to Action from Pam Allyn on the Huffington Post

Our hearts are broken. On December 14th, 2012, twenty children and six adults were killed in a horrifying elementary school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut. LitWorld honors, cherishes and mourns for the stories of the children and their beloved leaders, taken from the world far too soon.

Let us be a new story right now, the story of the day our country became pro-child. Today, LitWorld's Executive Director, Pam Allyn, issues a call to action on the Huffington Post.

"Today IS the day. Because today might have been the day one of those beautiful children lost another tooth, or learned to whistle, or sang a new song, or read for the first time, or made an art project, or wrote a story."

Read the full piece here.