I look at my happy two-year-old son sitting on the floor of his room, surrounded by stacks of books and I am delighted by the smile on his face.  He LOVES books!  Even though he can’t actually read yet, he knows that books hold magical adventures, information about the world, and stories of familiar characters that are comforting to encounter again and again.  My older son, who is ten, is a veritable bookworm – he loves books so much you almost have to put them away to get him to focus on anything else!  So when we start running out of room for our kids’ books, we are so blessed to be able to donate the ones they have outgrown to BookEnds, and know that these wonderful books will have another life.  My sons’ gently used books will go on to captivate, educate and comfort other children – it’s recycling at its very best! 
 
I have also been so fortunate to become involved with BookEnds at a deeper level.  I was first introduced to the organization last year when my older son’s fourth grade project was to run a book drive for BookEnds.  He was so excited about motivating his school community to gather up gently used children’s books, which his class then sorted by age level, and then, as a class, they personally delivered them to kids at another LA elementary school who really needed them.  I went along for the delivery and I’m so glad I did!!!  We took the books to a LAUSD school that was in real need of books for their classrooms and reading programs, and the students there were so excited, you would have thought we were handing out tickets to Disneyland instead of books.  And you should have seen how big their eyes got when they were told they could each pick out a book to take home as their very own!  Kids from both schools then sat down and read together and played games together outside on the yard, and even though these kids came from different parts of Los Angeles, they really seemed to come away with a realization of how very similar they are!  This is why I’m so honored to sit on the board of this fabulous organization that meets at least three important needs in our community: teaching Los Angeles kids leadership and compassion, helping the environment by keeping books out of our landfills, and increasing literacy by providing books to children who need them!  I hope you will join me in helping BookEnds to grow its impact and supply more books to the children of Los Angeles – together we as a community can raise literacy and increase opportunities for our children!
 
As I was writing this blog entry, I came across a wonderful “Pep Talk” that seems so appropriate.  I want to be on the road that leads to awesome, don’t you?  Let’s each do something today to give the world a reason to dance: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-gQLqv9f4o

Lori Kozak
BookEnds Board Member