Milk and Bookies turns the tables on bookless homes

Excerpted form the site:

According to the Family Scholarly Culture and Educational Success, one recent literacy study conducted by researchers in Nevada and California shows that the number of books in a home directly predicts a child’s reading achievement. In fact, children growing up in homes with many books tend to attain three years more schooling than children from bookless homes.

As children, books were something many of us took for granted. Nowadays, we are more likely to be among the exceptions as more and more children do not have or see books at home - none, in any form. So they can't take them for granted.

One Los Angeles mom, Meredith Alexander, noticed this problem too. But rather than file it away as an interesting statistic, she decided to do something about it. She founded Milk + Bookies in 2004.

It starts simply enough. A family hosts a Milk + Bookies birthday party in place of a traditional one. The birthday child, who probably doesn’t really need 20 new toys (he or she might be just as happy with the few from his parents) invites their friends to the party. Rather than requesting toys, they ask their peers to bring a new hardcover book in place of a gift.

At the party, guests inscribe bookplates (possibly sharing the reason they chose a specific book), affixing them in each book they’ve brought. The books are then donated to an organization that will be responsible for putting them into the hands of children in need right in the birthday child’s community.