Children’s Books to Malawi, Africa

We are partnering with the Mzuzu International Academy to bring new children’s books to the school library in Malawi.  Seven boxes of books will be sent to the school, ranging from picture books to young adult novels.  Our friend, Mary Grace Flaherty, is doing a Fulbright in Malawi, in part to help them improve the Mzuzu school library. In her blog, she writes:IMG_20170126_120854854

“Most of the shelves that have books on them now are filled with textbooks (which the students fetch and take to the classrooms as needed), and materials that will likely not be added to the collection (because of content, outdatedness, condition). Most of the books (especially in the fiction collection) have been withdrawn from other libraries. Many have the cover torn off and/or pages ripped out where the book pocket used to be, and bear some type of “discard” stamp. There are also many donated items that don’t fit the scope of the collection (e.g. biography of KatharineHepburn; a textbook on computing with a copyright date of 1961). As the headmaster put it, it takes many resources to ship books here, and while the gifts are generous, “we don’t want other people’s rubbish.”

Story Squad rIMG_20170116_110040989_HDRecently acquired part of a collection of new children’s books, and we will be sending them down to Africa, accompanied by letters written by North Carolina school children to the Mzuzu Academy students.