Our Two Year Journey in Southern Africa: Library Success

***********UPDATE*********

I now have class sets of the following books, so I am no longer requesting them:

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: Roald Dahl

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe: C.S. Lewis

THANK YOU!

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Sitting here across an ocean from you all, I am looking at hundreds of books, and 4 new notices of boxes that just arrived at the post office to pick up! I’d say the library book drive was a complete success (on your part). Now, it’s our turn over here to finish what you’ve started.

Thank you to the many people who donated time, money, and thoughtfulness to this project. We have over 300 donated books, and four new unopened boxes at the post office that arrived today. I think a few more boxes are still arriving in the coming weeks. At this point, we don’t need any more general donations. The ONLY thing we would still need would be multiple copies of the same book. So if you read this and think, “Dang! I wanted to send something, but got super busy and totally forgot…” there is still a small need: class sets of the same novel. I am requesting specific novels, based on the interest and reading levels of most of the students at our school. They are:

The Westing Game: Ellen Raskin

Bridge to Terabithia: Katherine Paterson

Holes: Louis Sachar

Hoot: Carl Hiaasen

A Wrinkle in Time: Madeleine L'Engle

Because of Winn Dixie: Kate DiCamillo

If you still wanted to help out, and you come across any of these titles, feel free to snatch them up and ship ‘em over to us:

Megan Samaniego

P.O.Box 1906

Keetmanshoop

Namibia

The goal is to have 5-7 of the same novel to be able to read in small groups. The big goal is to reach 35 copies of the same book, and be able to read it as a class and complete a novel unit together (and for future classes to do so). I will send updates as they come in, so that we don’t end up with 100 of the same book (although, having too many books is never a bad thing!).

Other than that, I think we have a good, healthy start to our library, and it will be up to the Ministry of Education to continue to feed books into our library. We have just received two boxes of books from the Ministry, so this is happening!

My vision for the remainder of this school year, which ends in December, is to be able to move the books out of my classroom, and into their own room. I want to make that space a warm, inviting one. I hope that kids will feel encouraged to spend time there to read, study, and enjoy the books that were so generously donated to them by strangers.

Thanks again for your generosity! It is inspiring and moving – to me, and to the children.