Sylvan Dell Publishing: Thank You for the Donation

My family has been Sylvan Dell Publishing fans since we first read The Giraffe Who was Afraid of Heights by David Ufer over a year ago. Since then we have enjoyed reading the cute titles about animals, the solar system, eco-system and more. The illustrations are always colorful.

This month I participated in the Champions for Kids Nickelodeon Big Help Book Drive to donate books to the Roseville Home Start Program. Since I knew my son enjoyed the books by Sylvan Dell I knew the kids in the transitional housing program would too. Sylvan Dell gladly gave us books to donate for our book drive. I know the kids that received the books will treasure them!

My son was so excited to see all the books we were sent to add to our book drive donation. He held up the two he thought were the coolest, he said "Wow Cool". It made me smile a little to myself since the two he liked were the ones that to me seemed California related, earthquakes and oceans!

Sylvan Dell Publishing sent 4 great titles:

Water Beds: Sleeping in the Ocean - "Tuck your little ones into bed with this soothing, restful story. How do marine mammals - animals that breathe air - sleep in the deep waters of the ocean? Water Beds: Sleeping in the Ocean answers this question. Youngsters meet ten marine mammals, including sea otters and bottlenose dolphins, manatees and harbor seals, humpback whales and walruses, and learn about each animal's unique habits. Although the brief portraits are based on up-to-date scientific research, author Gail Langer Karwoski weaves the facts into simple, poetic language. Connie McLennan's rich oil paintings capture the ocean's habitats and its appealing creatures. The story invites children to drift into a peaceful sleep on the gentle waves of imagination."

Panda's Earthquake Escape -  "Pandas' Earthquake Escape is a fictional story based on a real-life event. In real life, XiXi, a Giant panda did escape from the destroyed Wolong Panda Reserve when the 7.9 earthquake rocked Northern China on May 12, 2008. Author Phyllis Perry uses the adventures of a mother panda, LiLing, and her one year old cub, Tengfei, to teach children about earthquakes, animal survival, and to reinforce a mother's instinct to protect her child. After the quake, mother and cub run from the wreckage. Confused and afraid, they get lost! How will they survive outside their reserve? Will they find food? Will they find shelter? And will they safely endure the earthquake after-shocks? There is something to be learned from every natural disaster, and LiLing and Tengfei give children an opportunity to see it through their eyes. With the help of Susan Detwiler's vivid illustrations, author Phyllis Perry uses a factual event to teach children about earthquakes and animal survival."

The Rainforest Grew All Around -  "Imaginations will soar from the forest floor, up through the canopy and back down again, following the circle of life. The jungle comes alive as children learn about the wide variety of creatures lurking in the lush Amazon rainforest in this clever adaptation of the song "The Green Grass Grew All Around." Search each page to find unique rainforest bugs and butterflies hiding in the illustrations. Delve even deeper into the jungle using sidebars and the "For Creative Minds" educational section, both filled with fun facts about the plants and animals, how they live in the rainforest and the products we use that come from the rainforest."

The Glaciers Are Melting! - "Chicken Little may have thought the sky was falling but Peter Pika is sure the glaciers are melting and is off to talk to the Mountain Monarch about it. Joined along the way by friends Tammy Ptarmigan, Sally Squirrel, Mandy Marmot, and Harry Hare, they all wonder what will happen to them if the glaciers melt. Where will they live, how will they survive? When Wiley Wolverine tries to trick them, can the Mountain Monarch save them? More importantly, can the Mountain Monarch stop the glaciers from melting?"

The donation pile of books for the kids at Roseville Home Start

THANK YOU Sylvan Dell Publishing for your contribution to the Champions for Kids Nickelodeon Book Drive. The kids at Roseville Home Start are thankful for the books they received. You can purchase the Sylvan Dell books mentioned in this post and see the other great books they carry online at Sylvan Dell Publishing.

You can connect with Sylvan Dell Publishing on Facebook and Twitter.

Champions for Kids Nickelodeon Book Drive Donation

Today we donated our books we collect from family, friends, neighbors and publishing companies for our Champions for Kids Nickelodeon Book Drive Simple Service Project. I was so happy with all the donations we were able to collect. I am thankfully to everyone that helped support our book drive. Knowing that 61% of low-income families have no books for children in their homes inspired me to need to get books to those kids. Reading in my home is a treasured activity that we enjoy as a family. I want all kids to be able to sit down with a book and get lost in the adventure they are reading. Reading encourages learning, creativity and bonding time with your kids. Encourage your kids to read to you, siblings, family members or even their pets!

All the great books we will donate

We wrapped our book donation and added some colorful stuffing to make it a nice present.

My son and I packaged up all the wonderful books we planned to donate and headed to Roseville Home Start. I selected Roseville Home Start to receive our Champions for Kids Nickelodeon Book Drive Donation because many of the children living at the program no longer have the items including books that they once did. The charity helps local families that have become homeless get back on their feet through job and education training and a temporary home. They provide a home for these families that have found themselves needing help. What touches me about this charity is that homelessness can happen to anyone. A lost job, then a foreclosure or eviction and you find your family homeless. I cannot imagine the stress of that. Having children going through this brings me to tears.

We are bring books and "this book belongs to" tags to the charity today to bring a little bit of joy to the kids that live there. I want the kids to know that the book is theirs to keep forever no matter where they live. My son loves to point out his name tags in his own books before we read them. Knowing its his since he name is on it makes him smile. I hope our book donation will bring a smile to the kids living here.

Roseville Home Start was once a hotel but was turned into a housing program.

Today we were able to meet a few new people that worked at Home Start. They are always so nice about a donation and even sent us a thank you email.

On behalf of Roseville Home Start, thank you for your generous donation of children's books for the families at Home Start. As you know, we are a private, non-profit community based organization that relies heavily on community support. Since 1995, we have served thousands of homeless children and their families in Placer County and beyond. Thanks to donors like you, Roseville Home Start provided 56 families (114 children and 72 adults) in 2011 with a place to live, learn, and feel safe. Our community is a better place because you care.

This was so heart warming to read! I love the last line, we really do care and one person can make a difference. I had neighbors and companies help with my donation but had I not asked the books would not have been given. I love to see how people can come together to help kids!

I encourage all of you to participate in the Nickelodeon Big Help Book Drive in your own communities and to report it on the Champions for Kids website. Together we can be the one of millions to help Champions for Kids meet their goal of helping 20 million people by 2020. It can be as simple as asking friends and family to help you by collecting gently used books. So many of us have kids or grandkids that have books they have outgrown that other kids would cherish. Or get together and have a donation jar for change for whatever money people have to spare for money to buy new books. You can participate by having community group or kids sports teams make a group donation of a few books too. There are so many ways each and everyone of us can find a way to help kids get the books they need. #NickCFK

My son was so sweet today. He told me We are taking books to the kidsies Mom. (He calls kids "kidsies)

Thank you Roseville Home Start for all you do for the community

A big thank you to Sylvan Dell Publishing and Zondervan Publishing for contributing books to the donation.

You can read more about the Champions for Kids Nickelodeon Big Help Book Drive in my blog post about the September Simple Service Project here. For more ideas on what types of books Walmart has to buy for your donation, including the awesome Bargain Bin you can read my Google+ Story.




*I am a member of the Collective Bias™ Social Fabric® Community.  This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias™ and Champions for Kids. #NickCFK #CBias All opinions expressed in this post are my own.

Champions for Kids September Simple Service Project: Nickelodeon Book Drive

As far back as I have memories books have been front and center in my life. My mom read to us all the time and made sure there were plenty of books for us 5 kids. Birthdays, Holidays and just because books were given to us. I have wonderful memories of trips to the book store to meet authors to sign our books, even Babar the Elephant at one book event. Books are very important to my family and its a love I now share with my own son. Not only is my son learning as I read to him and he "reads" in his own way back to me (he is almost 3 years old) but its a time we can bond as a family.

Libraries were something we were lucky enough to have access to. Once we even lived next door to a huge library it was Awesome!!! Sadly this is not the case in many homes. Many families and educators do not have the resources to buy books for their own children or students. The thought that kids do not have the chance to sit down and read a book at home makes me beyond sad. Books not only teach kids to read but they teach them to be creative and to see the world through a different perspective.

Here are some facts about Children's Literacy in America from Champions for Kids:

• Students who do more reading at home are better readers and have higher math scores. Students with more types of reading materials in the home also demonstrate greater reading proficiency.
•  67% of fourth graders in the U.S. are reading below a Proficient level, according to the most recent National Assessment of Educational Progress.
• 61% of low-income families have no books for children in their homes, and more than 80% of the preschool and after-school programs serving at-risk children have no books at all.
•  Approximately 8.7 million fourth through twelfth grade students struggle with required reading and writing tasks in school. For many adolescent students, ongoing difficulties with reading and writing figure prominently in the decision to drop out of school.

For the month of September Champions for Kids Simple Service Project will be a Nickelodeon Big Help Book Drive. I am so excited to be a part of this project. Books are so special to me and I feel like every home should be full of them.

 My son and I headed to Walmart to shop for books to donate. I found many cute Nickelodeon books with the characters we know. There was Dora the Explorer, Go Diego Go and Sponge Bob. I was looking for Blues Clues too but did not spot him. We found many great books to donate at low prices.

 My son loves books as much as I do and had a blast helping me pick out the books for us to buy. Our book section had many books to select from. I wish it was bigger but that's just because I LOVE books!

These are the books I have collected just in the last few days for my Champions for Kids Nickelodeon Big Help Book Drive. I have the books I purchased at Walmart and a few others that neighbors have given me. I have only just started to collect donations and I look forward to seeing how many books we can collect for a local charity. I have selected a local charity that I know could use these books. They house families in transition from being homeless to independent living in sustainable environments. These families could be any of our neighbors that have lost jobs and then lost their homes with no where to turn. I feel this charity can use the book donation to give to the children that live there. There can be as many as 30 kids living at the charity transitional homes that need these books to make sure they can get the quality reading they deserve.

I encourage all of you to participate in the Nickelodeon Big Help Book Drive in your own communities and to report it on the Champions for Kids website. Together we can be the one of millions to help Champions for Kids meet their goal of helping 20 million people by 2020. It can be as simple as asking friends and family to help you by collecting gently used books. So many of us have kids or grandkids that have books they have outgrown that other kids would cherish. Or get together and have a donation jar for change for whatever money people have to spare for money to buy new books. You can participate by having community group or kids sports teams make a group donation of a few books too. There are so many ways each and everyone of us can find a way to help kids get the books they need. #NickCFK

Here is a short video from Champions for Kids about the Nickelodeon Book Drive:




For more ideas on what types of books Walmart has to buy for your donation, including the awesome Bargain Bin you can read my Google+ Story.



*I am a member of the Collective Bias™ Social Fabric® Community.  This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias™ and Champions for Kids. #NickCFK #CBias All opinions expressed in this post are my own.