Works for Me Wednesday (Vol. 4): The Gift of Reading Bags

One night, quite a while back, I had the idea of “A Gift of Reading” bags pop into my head. The thought was simple – instead of donating or Paperback Swapping some of our extra books, the kids and I would put them in a gift bag and offer them to whoever wanted them with the promise that the receiver would later pass an equal or greater amount of books onto someone else. A sort of pay-it-forward joy-of-reading endeavor, offered in thanksgiving for the plethora of wonderful books we so enjoy each day.

Why I didn’t act on this idea the following day, I am not sure! But, since my bedside scribble about it just resurfaced yesterday, the kdis and I began acting on it.. We picked out six duplicate copies of Christian/Catholic children’s books and put them into a gift bag. Then, we tucked in a card in as well with instructions for the recipient. (I put thumbnails of the card below in case anyone is interested in it.  You can click on them to enlarge them.)  We will offer this bag to the first local person who shows an interest in it, praying it is received well and passed along, providing us some fun geography lessons as it makes it way into new hands and brings others the Gift of Reading.

Within the next few weeks, we hope to make some other themed and general Gift of Reading bags as we continue our Order in the Home quest. So, if anyone local wants one, just ask! And, if those afar want to borrow our idea, go for it! We’d love to see pay-it-forward Gift of Reading Bags moving all over the world, and would be ever grateful if you would send us an email, post a link or write a comment if you start one. It will be exciting to see not only where our Gift of Reading Bags end up, but also to see if and how this idea – whispered to me one night when I couldn’t sleep -- takes off.

Enjoy reading and sharing today. It certainly works for us!

UPDATE:  I was just thinking about how we never made any more of these bags, as we had intended to do, and how I want to start again this fall as we continue to declutter our home.  I was also realizing that, in terms of getting any response, the Gift of Reading Bag described above turned out to be a flop.  But, I know from words spoken to me by its recipient, it was appreciated.  And, that our offered gift was enjoyed is all that matters.

As I think about Gift of Reading Bags, and have just heard about a fun, new Blog Hop, I wanted to update this post to share at Give Back Thursday:



And, of course, if you want to hear what works for other folks, check out the links at We are THAT Family with everthing from Mommy Management tips to getting eyedrops in a child's eye.  The ideas and tips are in abundance again this week.