Last year I wanted to participate in the first read-a-thon organized by Dewey from The Hidden Side of a Leaf (who else?! She is so active in organizing all kinds of great bookblogging activities. Besides, she manages to maintain one of my favorite bookblogs around. Dewey is one awesome woman!). Too bad I had to cancel at the last moment due to a wedding I couldn’t not attend.
Fortunately, the Read-a-thon was a big success and now the second edition is coming up in the weekend of June 28 and 29. So, I can hear your brain starting to work and throwing out all kinds of questions:
What is the 24 Hour Read-a-thon?
It’s sort of a reading challenge, only everyone participates at the same time. For 24 hours, we read books, post in our blogs about our reading, and visit other readers’ blogs. We also participate in mini-challenges throughout the day.
What the heck is a mini-challenge? Do I have to do them?
This something that the Cheerleaders organize so that Readers can take a break from their reading. You can get an idea about the October 2007 mini-challenges in this post, which was the home base post for that read-a-thon. And no, you can just spend the whole 24 hours reading if that’s what you want to do.
Due to the time difference, the time is a bit unfortunate for me, but hey! at least I will get to bed and sleep as soon as the challenge ends. You see, the Read-a-thon starts on Saturday June 28 at 9am Pacific DST, which is (if I counted correctly) Saturday evening 9 or 10pm for me. Pacific time is GMT -8 and in Armenia we’re GMT +4, I think (or is it five?). I’ll double check that.
This year, there is also a charity that you can raise money for if you want: Reading Is Fundamental (RIF), an organization that provides children with books. From what I gathered from the website, this organization works only in the US.
If you like, and it’s not necessary, you could ask your readers or your friends and family to sponsor you. Just ask people how much they would like to donate for every that you spend reading. Then, when it’s over, you can donate to RIF in two ways.
Though I think this is an awesome initiative and I fully support any effort to get children to read anywhere in the world, I have decided I won’t be supporting the charity in my Read-a-thon. There is enough for me to do in Armenia, where I live.
I would love to get kids in Armenia to read more as well. The quality of education has dropped since the country became independent and is based on old-fashioned teaching methods and outdated teaching material. Books are out of reach for many children because of poverty, close-down of libraries due to lack of money or other reasons. Parents hardly read to or with their children, because they don’t understand the importance of reading or because they simply don’t have the time because they are too busy trying to get food on the table. Besides, as in so many places in the world, computers and computer games in particular are way too attractive for kids here as well. If they have a couple of drams (the local Armenian currency) to spend, many boys will go to the local computer cafe to play some game. This all sounds familiar? I guess in some ways Armenia is not that different from any other country.
Yes. So. This was a post about the Read-a-thon, but I ended up ranting about the state of reading in Armenia. Finish rant.
I signed up for the Read-a-thon, because I plan to have my internet connection at home sorted out by that time so I can blog and visit other participants during the Read-a-thon. It promises to be a lot of fun! I am looking forward to it.
There is more information on the Read-a-thon here and here. You can sign up as a reader, cheerleader or prize-donor (or all of them) here.
In Europa - Geert Mak
Kindertijd Jeugdjaren Jongelingschap (Childhood Boyhood Youth) - Lev Tolstoy
Is there an Armenian organization we could donate to if we want to sponsor you for the readathon? I just want to mail piles of new textbooks to one of the schools right now, but I know it doesn’t work that way.
Dew, my comment on this post actually made my mom an me think about a small project we could set up in Armenia involving books and kids. This is just in its brainstorming stages and I have to make some inquiries, but something might come out of it (unrelated to the Read-a-thon). Obviously, if this will really get going, I will post about it here. Involvement from bookbloggers might be useful and very appreciated. I don’t want to say more right now, as we are really brainstorming only at the moment. But it is not entirely unrealistic.
As for any organisation to donate to, I can’t think of any right now, but I’ll try to look into it in the coming days.
That’s so exciting! I hope you and your mom come up with something that’ll really benefit kids in Armenia.