COUNT ON READING UPDATE

["Suzanne W. Hawley 813-592-1777" <HAWLEYS@MAIL.FIRN.EDU>]

Thank you all for sending in your numbers!  The "Count" as of December 17
was 44,723,776!  That was a leap of 6 million from November!  Quite an
accomplishment.  But, we need to keep making huge leaps to get close to our
goal of a billion books by April 2.  Please help spread the word to all of
your colleagues.

Count on Reading, as many of you know, is an American Association of School
Librarians' initiative.  It is being underwritten by Follett Software
Company and challenges the young people to read a billion books and to
become avid readers and library users.  As David Loertscher stated, "The
nice thing is that every reader who reads his share of the billion 'books'
(newspapers, magazines, Internet sites, CDs or audio books, and printed
books) reaps the benefits of becoming better comprehenders, spellers,
grammarians, writers and vocabulary wizards.  Every reader gets the gold!"

If you have not already joined us, please call AASL at 800-545-2433, ext.
4389 and ask for a packet of information.  You may also e-mail
mlewis@ala.org or me Hawleys@mail.firn.edu and you will be signed up.  Keep
sending your reading counts in until the end of March.

You can check the current count at the ALA website
(http://www.ala.org/aasl/ConRbrochure.html) and, if you search for "Count
on Reading" on the web using your browser, you'll see some great ideas
being used around the country.

Join us today won't you --- and start the New Year off right!!!

Suzanne Hawley
hawleys@mail.firn.edu
Publicity Chair, Count on Reading