LitWorld sends love and shooting stars to the wonderful Crow Bookshopfor donating books to the two New York City schools that we will visit on the World Read Aloud Day Bus Tour. Thank you for sharing the magic of story. The joy that spread's across a child's face upon receiving a book of their very own is a powerful sight, a priceless gift.
Crow Bookshop is Burlington Vermont’s local, independent bookstore since 1995. They carry new, used, and remainder titles in a wide variety of subjects–from classics to cookbooks, graphic novels to gardening books, sci-fi to psychology–including a fine section of children's books. Learn more at crowbooks.com.
We are pleased to celebrate our amazing, and hilarious, Social Media WRADvocate, Colby Sharp. Colby is a fourth grade teacher in Battle Creek, Michigan. He blogs at sharpread and helps run the Nerdy Book Club blog.
Colby is taking the World Read Aloud Day blogging challenge, and in doing so giving us great insight into how he became the passionate reader he is today. A few things will happen when you read his blog: You will want to read (or re-read) Hatchet. The joy and love he exudes for reading and learning will make you wish you were a student in his class. Finally, you'll really wish you could see a picture of him sitting on his nightly reading throne, pictured below.
Thank you for bringing us into your reading world, Colby, and thank you for sharing your love for stories with so many children and adults, and in doing so bringing them into the global literacy club.
Stay in touch with this great WRADvocate on twitter, follow @colbysharp.
Our Innovation Hub in Kibera, Kenya and our LitClub community in Kisumu, Kenya celebrated World Read Aloud Day early this week, in advance of the upcoming elections an school recess.
Celebrations at our Innovation Hub were run by extraordinary leaders and LitWorld Regional Coordinators Prisca and Jeff of the Children of Kibera Foundation.
Celebrations in Kisumu were organized by our partner the Golden Girls Foundation, and lead by our wonderful LitClub Facilitator Golda:
We brought all of the LitClub members from three schools together and proceeded to have a day like no other! The little girls read aloud to each other, to their mothers, and even their grandmothers! Likewise, their mothers and grandmothers read aloud to them. It was magial.
Hear more from Golda, and see even more pictures of this special celebration on the Golden Girls Foundation Facebook page.
John Schumacher (aka Mr. Schu) is a teacher-librarian at Brook Forest Elementary School in Oak Brook, Illinois. John serves on AASL’s Best Websites for Teaching and Learning, the Monarch Readers’ Choice Selection Committee, and the 2014 John Newbery Selection Committee. In his spare time, he reads, travels, and blogs at Watch. Connect. Read. John is a 2011 Library Journal Mover and Shaker.
This year John has planned an incredible celebration of literacy and reading aloud for Brook Forest, including Skype chats with other classrooms around the country, and guest authors Katherine Applegate, Joanne Levy, Laurel Snyder, Leeza Hernandez, and Dori Hillestad Butler!
John is also taking the World Read Aloud Day Blogging Challenge and his insights, humor and reflections on the power of reading and sharing stories are moving and hilarious all at once. In his first post he set a timer for 90 seconds and typed the first read aloud memories that came to mind. In his second post he channeled his 10-year-old self, and in his third post he shares a snapshot of his reading life.
Follow him on twitter @MrSchuReads, and as a special treat, watch this video for a tour of his bookcase, and count how many titles you add to your "to read" list in the first minute!
We are honored to share this guest post from Josh Hanagarne, The World's Strongest Librarian. Josh describes himself as "an aspiring strongman, bookish nerd, twitchy guy with Tourette’s Syndrome, devoted family man, tearer of phonebooks, and humble librarian. A tall, thin paradox wrapped in thick glasses."
We asked Josh, "What do you think is special about reading aloud?" Here is what he had to say:
"One of the greatest, unexpected joys of fatherhood has been reading aloud to my son. I didn't realize how much I’d missed it until he started begging for ten stories before bed each evening.
Night by night, I see the stories, characters, and book shaping my little boy. I’ve never been more aware that reading makes us better thinkers, and reading aloud makes us better readers. I am seeing it happen in real time.
And at five years old, he is already in love with storytelling. He invents, he imagines, and he experiments as he uses stories to try and explain the world he sees.
I celebrate World Read Aloud Day because the ability to tell our own stories is an integral part of personal dignity. And my son understands it as well, even though he doesn’t know he knows."
--Josh Hanagarne
Josh has a memoir on the way! The World's Strongest Librarian will be out on May 2nd, we can't wait to read his story. Until then watch the trailer below. Josh embodies LitWorld's 7 Strengths and we were moved by the way he honors and values the power of story to sustain and empower lives.
LitWorld sends love and shooting stars to the wonderful Crow Bookshop for donating books to the two New York City schools that we will visit on the World Read Aloud Day Bus Tour. Thank you for sharing the magic of story. The joy that spread's across a child's face upon receiving a book of their very own is a powerful sight, a priceless gift. 
