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TheBarefootStoryteller.BarefootBooks.com 

 Please also visit my new blog just for Barefoot Books, where you can read about specials and updates...and enter your name for free drawings!

 BarefootBooksStoryteller.blogspot.com

Barefoot Books will be launching a new colorful web-site this summer... a new look, new features, but with the same wonderfully enchanting & educational stories, world music, art, puppets, puzzles and more! There will also be the new Ambassador Program, new exciting fund raising opportunities and more new titles! Stay tuned here for updates and special offers, and keep visiting my Barefoot Books web-site:

www.BarefootBooksStoryteller.com

Books For Africa is the largest shipper of donated books to the African continent. Since 1988, they have sent over 20 million books to 44 African countries and into the hands of rural schoolchildren. Many of these children are taught in primitive schoolrooms without running water, electricity or the basic materials and tools needed to learn. By collecting, sorting and shipping books to these communities, Books For Africa provides these children with the fundamental tools they need to learn, grow and improve their individual lives and the world around them. To learn more, we encourage you to visit the Books For Africa web site and watch this inspiring video on their mission.

This Wednesday Barefoot Books launched a new Books for Africa page on our US website that will allow customers to donate a selection of African-themed books to Books For Africa by "purchasing" them at well below retail value. These donated books, available for either $5 or $3, will be set aside at our warehouse in Wisconsin and picked up in bulk by Books For Africa for shipment to the African continent.

Like many of you, I grew up enjoying the playful and educational programs on PBS KIDS®. Now Barefoot Books is now working together with PBS to create thePBS Parents Collection, a special collection of our favorite books for young children. Barefoot Books and PBS share a commitment to inspire a love of learning and foster the exploration and appreciation of our amazing and diverse world. Happy reading!

Good News!!! First Book is strengthening its volunteer Advisory Board network and putting more books into the hands of children from low-income families throughout Maine.  During the two years of the grant, First Book will establish at least 2 new Advisory Boards, register 50 new Recipient Groups, and distribute a minimum of 100,000 new books.

To donate to First Book, please visit http://www.firstbook.org/booksforkeeps/thebarefootstoryteller

A local effort to help those less fortunate in our community through arts, crafts & music, the second annual Arts for Hunger, organized by the Unity Area Rotary Club to raise awareness and funding for local hunger relief efforts, is underway in the Art Gallery at the Unity Centre for the Performing Arts in Unity.  The Art Gallery is full of a wide variety of arts and crafts including paintings, pottery, photography, baskets, quilts, woodworking, stained glass, jewelry and much more ~ all donated by local artists and citizens.

In addition, Tree by Leaf will return again this year to perform a benefit concert as part of Arts for Hunger on Saturday, October 25 at 7:30 p.m.  Tickets are $10.00 and patrons are encouraged to bring non-perishable food items to the concert.  Tickets can be purchased at the door or online at www.unitymaine.org

100% of the proceeds generated from the Art Sale and Benefit Concert will be donated to the Volunteer Regional Food Pantry (serves 11 towns in Waldo County), Open Door and People to People.

Thank you for supporting the hunger relief efforts in OUR community.

This post is part of Blog Action Day 08 - Poverty

International Puppets for Peace Day was initiated seven years ago after 9/11. The inspiration for it was the image of many hearts and hands around the world focusing on the good. You are invited to join the many others on six continents and celebrate Peace through Story and Puppetry. There can be puppet shows big and small, in public venues, in the quiet of your home, in classroom, school community, well practiced, or spontaneous. They all contribute to the powerful joy-bringing healing of the world. Sharing puppet stories that let goodness shine out, that bring to life cooperation between people, that warm our hearts and make us laugh with the wonder of life, can become story seeds that help us understand the world, and all that is unique and universal in it's people. It is held on Michaelmas Day, September 29th, a day to remind us we can be courageous in the face of chaos, and the "dragons" of the world. (with all due respect to my friend Herb, they mean the un-friendly ones)

Arthur of Albion  now available from Barefoot Books. Read more about it here

Wendi Richards, of Fairfield, is a national finalist in the ABCs Children's Book Competition! Her story, A Little Monster Day, is about a precocious preschooler with an out-of-control imagination. Tanya's pretend play gets her into all sorts of hilarious trouble. But all will be well, because we parents love our little monsters, anyway. You can read A Little Monster Day, along with the nine other finalists at www.abcbookcompetition.org. Each story is posted along with a sample illustration, to give you an idea of how it will look once it is a published picture book. To win this competition and get Wendi's book published, she needs to gather the most on-line votes. Voting runs from Sunday September 21 to Sunday October 5. You can vote once everyday from your home computer. This is an incredible opportunity and I hope you will help Wendi win.