The Countdown Begins! It's Time to Get Ready for World Read Aloud Day!

World Read Aloud Day is three weeks away: Spread the Word! 

Write about the event on your Facebook, Twitter, or Blog, and change your social media avatars to the WRAD Badge to rally your friends and colleagues to act for Global Literacy! Send our WRAD 2012 Kit to interested friends, family, and colleagues.

Check out the full schedule for our signature New York City WRAD event at Books of Wonder, which will feature read-aloud sessions by special guest authors (Walter Dean Myers, Katherine Paterson, and Peter Lerangis, to name a few!) and include exciting workshops on pop-up book making, spoken word poetry, creative writing, and more. Each child will receive one free ticket to win an awesome prize from our ongoing WRAffle, and Clifford the Big Red Dog will be present. So should you! Those who cannot make the event will be able to watch the day's events streamed live online!

Opening the Door: Save the Date LitWorld Gala May 10, 2012

Please join us for a magical evening celebrating LitWorld's accomplishments and looking ahead to the exciting and innovative initiatives unfolding right now.

Thursday, May 10, 2012 ~ 6:30-9pm
The Metropolitan Pavilion
Metropolitan Suite, 2nd Floor
123 West 18th Street
New York, NY 10011
Cocktails, Hors D'oeuvres, Live Music, Paddle Raiser & Silent Auction

RSVP early on our LitWorld Gala 2012 page.

A Quote to Live By

We at LitWorld love this quote, and we are pleased to share this with our community.

“Literacy is a bridge from misery to hope. It is a tool for daily life in modern society. It is a bulwark against poverty, and a building block of development, an essential complement to investments in roads, dams, clinics and factories. Literacy is a platform for democratization, and a vehicle for the promotion of cultural and national identity. Especially for girls and women, it is an agent of family health and nutrition. For everyone, everywhere, literacy is, along with education in general, a basic human right.... Literacy is, finally, the road to human progress and the means through which every man, woman and child can realize his or her full potential.”

- By Kofi Annan (Ghanaian diplomat, secenth secretary-genearl of the United Nations, 2001 Nobel Peace Prize.)

Pam Allyn Headlines Pearson’s National Summit on School Improvement

Pam Allyn will be one of the renowned global experts speaking at the Pearson's National Summit on School Improvement on February 9-11 in Orlando, Florida. The conference will be focused on school leadership, change management and implementing sustainable systemwide change.

Pam will be examining Common Core State Standards as a lever and a tool for transforming classroom life as states transition to fewer, higher standards to ensure that students are college- and career-ready.

The conference also includes case study and best practices in school improvement seminars presented by current educators, sessions on implementing the Common Core effectively, as well as large session conversations and presentations focused on educator effectiveness, continuous improvement, and increasing teacher engagement.

*Text is adopted from the Digital Journal. To learn more, visit HERE. 

LitWorld's World Read Aloud Day 2012: "What Would the World be Like if Everyone Could Read?"

This World Read Aloud Day, we invite our Global Community to ponder on the question, "What Would the World be Like if Everyone Could Read?" Above, view some responses from adults to children alike, and hear their perspectives on how reading could transform the world for the better. Then, it's YOUR turn! Share your written responses and video links with LitWorld on Facebook (facebook.com/litworld) and Twitter (twitter.com/litworldsays)! We'd love to share on our website! We look forward to hearing what you have to say!

LitWorld Takes A Stand Against Tucson Book Banning

Nineteenth-century German Jewish poet Heinrich Heine wrote in his 1820-1821 play Almansor, "Dort, wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man am Ende auch Menschen": Where they burn books, they will also ultimately burn people.

In the wake of yesterday's incredible "Internet Blackout" over the disturbing SOPA and PIPA bills, we are left thinking deeply about censorship. Recently, Tucson banned a set of books that represent the diverse community that makes up this country. We at LitWorld are outraged by the actions being taken in Tucson. These books share important lessons, theories, and ideologies, and banning them in school is an injustice to our students. We embrace the diversity of our country, and we believe that all stories have the right to be heard. Our students deserve an education that allows for the representation of a diverse cultural history that reflects the beauty of our multi-ethnic society.

As we officially take a stand against the Tucson book banning, we encourage you, our community, to go out and support the 7 books that are being banned:

Critical Race Theory, by Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic
500 Years of Chicano History in Pictures, edited by Elizabeth Martinez
Message to Aztlán, by Rodolfo Corky Gonzales
Chicano! The History of the Mexican Civil Rights Movement, by F Arturo Rosales
Occupied America: A History of Chicanos, by Rodolfo Acuña
Pedagogy of the Oppressed, by Paulo Freire
Rethinking Columbus: The Next 500 Years, by Bill Bigelow

Please buy copies of these books today, encourage your friends to do the same, and spread the message that book banning is no way to teach our children.

We hope you will stand with us in protecting our students' rights to access these important, groundreaking books that will fuel their education.

Read more here.

Beautiful Stickers to Help Spread the Word, and a Generous Donation

Our friends at Customized Stickers, a family owned and operated company that makes custom stickers, decals, and labels, printed the beautiful stickers shown here on notebooks we gave to our LitClub members during our trip to Kenya this past summer, and this winter they suprised us with a generous in-kind donation of magnets!

A special thanks to the team at Customized Stickers for reaching out to us and contributing to the LitWorld story...