Spread the love this coming Valentine's Day...

International Book Giving Day 2017

2017 International Book Giving Day poster created by Marianne Dubuc

Let’s spread the love this Valentine’s Day by getting as many books into the hands of as many children as possible.

Here are three simple ways to join in. 

1. Give a Book to a Friend or Relative.

Celebrate International Book Giving Day by giving a child a new, used or borrowed book.

2. Leave a Book in a Waiting Room or Lobby.

Choose a waiting room where kids are stuck waiting and there are few to no good books available. Purchase a good book, and deposit your book covertly or overtly in your waiting room of choice. The goal here is to spread the love of reading to kids, so choose a fun book, nothing controversial.

3. Donate a Book.

Wrap up a box of children’s books that your kids have outgrown and get them in the hands of children who could really use a book or two. Donate your books to your local library, children’s hospital, or shelter. Alternatively, donate your books to an organisation working internationally to get books in the hands of kids, such as Books for Africa.

International Book Giving Day is a volunteer initiative aimed at increasing children’s access to, and enthusiasm for, books. Go on spread the love, you know you want to.  #bookgivingday

I’ve been giving a little thought to the books I might share and have come up with these four. Hopefully, there is something for everyone here.

Dave’s Cave by Frann Preston-Gannon: A funny bedtime story about an upwardly mobile Neanderthal. Dave is a caveman who likes living in a cave but thinks perhaps there is a better cave somewhere. So, club in hand, he sets off to look for it. Only to discover one cave is too small, one cave too large, one cave has a scary sabre-tooth tiger and one a stroppy Neanderthal cave dweller who does not like sharing!

Beetle Boy by M G Leonard: A story set in London, which begins when Dr Bartholomew Cuttle, director of science disappears from his entomology room without trace. His thirteen-year-old son Darkus is sent to live with his uncle Max, an archaeologist who claims to have discovered the tomb of Nefertiti. While in Max’s flat Darkus discovers Baxter, a giant rhinoceros beetle that can bow its horn in answer to questions, and open its mouth to smile.

Wild Lily by K M Peyton: Set in the Twenties in Lockwood Hall a huge house and home to the gloriously rich Sylvester family and Lily, the 13-year-old daughter of the head gardener. While Lily cooks and cleans for her widowed father, Antony the 17-year-old son of the Sylvester family spends his holidays from Eton roaring about the countryside in his two-seater plane. Lily is in love with Antony but what will she do as the family’s reputation disintegrates amid a story of fraud and murder.   

A beginner’s guide to bear spotting by Michelle Robinson: An illustrated story which will delight the under-fives. Did you know if you meet a black bear and wish to avoid being eaten, you must back away slowly? If you do that you then have to hope you don't bump into a brown bear, because to avoid being eaten by a brown bear you must act dead, although to a black bear, that's like an invitation to dinner. Or it could be the other way around.