A charity the whole family can support, from the home, for FREE!

While roaming around on the internet today and stumbled upon an awesome charity.  We Give Books donates a book to one of five charities for every free online book you read.

We Give Books was started by Penguin Group and the Pearson Foundation to "support literacy through programs that engage entire communities through literacy and awareness programs".  The We Give Books program is an initiative that allows anyone with Internet access to give books to children in need.  When you sign up (it's painless and fast) you can choose from one of five charities.  Then you can select from one of 151 digital picture books (both fiction and non fiction) to read online.  You can read the entire book, nothing has been edited.  The animated page turning is nicely done and they use high res images of the books so you can see every detail.

The book selection includes classics like The Snowy Day and Peter Rabbit as well as new favorites like Ladybug Girl, Skippyjon Jones, and some great DK non-fiction titles.   There are even some graphic novel format books aimed at kids 8-10.  I've read some to my son and the neighbor's daughter and they've loved it.

You can sign up as an individual, a school, a blog, whatever.  This is also international, you can choose your location as US, UK, or Other.  The site is clearly laid out and easy to navigate.  You can actually choose to support more than one charity, but you'll have to select which charity you're reading for before you start the book.  I signed up to support Harlem Children Zone and LitWorld because they had such low numbers, though both are great organizations.  Once you finish a book you can click on the "Give A Book" button at the bottom of the screen and We Give Books will donate a book to your chosen charity.  This is all completely free for the reader!

This is a great activity for your classroom, Girl Scout/ Boy Scout troop, or just for your family.  These are great books that are absolutely free to read!

If you've got kids who like to read, or you enjoy them yourself, there's no reason not to sign up.  So far the program is slated to run until January 2012, so sign up and start reading.