Sweet Home Chicago...

I am so happy there will be a direct flight from Buenos Aires to Chicago. If there is one thing that I really hated when travelling with a 2 year old and a 5 year old it was making connections at airports.

Apparently American Airlines will use Boeing 767-300 with 30 next generation business class seats (whatever that means) and 191 regular seats. Flying with the little ones there is little hope of me sleeping like in the picture above, but at least I will not have to change planes.

Here is the tentative flight schedule:

From Chicago:
 AA961   Departs: 8:10 p.m.    Arrives: 10:20 a.m. (next day)

From Buenos Aires**:
 AA964   Departs: 8:55 p.m.    Arrives: 5:10 a.m. (next day)
  ** effective Dec. 14, 2007

Yahoo Biz article

Reading is Fundamental Argentina

One of the non-profits that I am involved in is the local license of Reading is Fundamental. Their main goal in life is to promote literacy and they target children specifically. They have made a huge impact here in Argentina and I can´t say enough wonderful things about them. They go to the most needy communities and they get everyone involved behind their efforts to flourish a love for books and reading in the hearts of the children. Once you see this in action you can not help but be touched.

Please take a moment to read the following and if you can find it within your hearts to help out a little it will go a very long way. I also promise to post the results here of the latest reading marathon. So if you are here in Argentina or even in the United States you can contribute. Also, if you have a blog and you decide to contribute please let me know. I am not part of RIF Argentina, which locally they are known as Fundación Leer. I am just a contributor donating proceeds from my sales and, whenever I can, my time as well.

ANNUAL “NATIONAL READING MARATHON” CAMPAIGN

Reading brings us together again on October 5th.
Together we can improve prospects and opportunities for children’s education in Argentina.
Your support can make a difference.

In 1997 Fundación Leer signed a license agreement with “Reading Is Fundamental, Inc” in the United States. Through this partnership, we are able to operate RIF programs in our country.

What is the 5th National Reading Marathon?

For the fifth year running Fundación Leer invites children and youngsters, with their families and the rest of the community to enjoy the magic and joy of reading for a day.

October 5th is the date set for thousands of children in schools, community centers, clubs, libraries, soup-kitchens, hospitals and health centers, to share multiple activities based on reading: narrations, theatre productions, workshops, reading in parks, amongst others.

Through this free and non-competitive initiative, we propose to create an awareness in the community as to the importance of awakening children´s interest in reading, and to afford all children equal and enriching opportunities for literacy.

Using “Enjoy Reading, share a book with a friend” as our motto for this year´s Marathon, we propose to highlight reading´s potential for developing relationships and communicating.

What is a Reading Corner?

Reading Corners are informal, happy areas, furnished with books, where children and youngsters are able to select their favorites, touch, leaf through and read them at will. They are created as literacy-promoting environments by the school community, aided by volunteers, and following experts’ guidelines. The Reading Corners offer the chance of bringing community members together, inviting them to be a part of the proposed literacy-promoting activities. The Reading Corners are created specifically as spaces for children and youngsters to read, based on the fact that reading is a key element in their personal development.

Why contribute?

The participating schools will take part in a draw for 200 new books to set up Reading Corners.

The winning establishments will receive new books and attend a training session run by Fundación Leer team for guidelines as to the creation of Reading Corners and ideas as to possible activities to carry out in the pursuit of motivating reading.

In this way, Fundación Leer proposes to motivate reading and promote literacy of children and youngsters nationwide, generating a long-term positive impact on their personal development, and easing their full insertion in society.

Your donation contributes to increasing the number of Reading Corners to be raffled at the close of the 5th edition of the National Reading Marathon.

How to contribute

In order of being able to receive donations from other parts of the world, Fundación Leer signed an alliance with Help Argentina. If you would like to contribute please enter the following link: http://www.helpargentina.org/spanish/ongs_success.php?id=71 and click “donate”.

What is your contribution worth?

US$ 12 equals 2 new books for a Reading Corner.

US$ 100 equals 18 new books for a Reading Corner.

US$ 500 equals 90 new books, making up a full Reading Corner.

US$ 1100 equals 200 new books, making up a full Reading Corner.

You may assign your contribution to a specific locality.

Should you carry out the donation of a full Reading Corner (200 new books), you will be able to specify which locality or area within Argentina it should be assigned to in the draw. In this way, the establishments in that locality not only participate in the general draw, but also increase their chances of winning a Reading Corner in this “exclusive” draw for their area.

To find out more about this possibility, please contact us at amigos@leer.org.ar

Some results from the 4th National Reading Marathon 2006 .

Participants:
1.719.284 children
5.511 establishments
120.684 adults (teachers, parents, community leaders, paediatricians, nurses, librarians)
23 provinces and the City of Buenos Aires
20 Declarations of Interest: from the National Ministry for Science and Technology, and from
15 Provinces and the City of Buenos Aires

The Bake Shop Ghost and other books

**originally this post came out on the 19th of June, 2007. I have added to it.**



I seem to get a lot of hits on my posts regarding children so I thought I would add another entry for those people looking up things kid related. I can´t come up with a list of great children´s books because that list would be so long. I wanted to maybe limit it to the most recent additions to the library that I think are outstanding. This one I picked up on our last trip to Chicago and I liked it so much that I decided to review it in Amazon. If you click on the picture you will be taken to that site. If you would like to see all of my reviews in Amazon you can click -here-.

I have very few reviews but at least they are very helpful if you go by the votes I have received.

Some other books that I think are great follow:


"I´m a Manatee" It comes with a CD of the song. It's very catchy, clever and sprinkled with sophisticated vocabulary. Adults will need to translate some of these verses. For example, "immune from human folly and inanity".

We loved this one so much we bought another John Lithgow book called Mahalia Mouse Goes to College. This one also comes with a CD featuring the author reading the story as part of his commencement speech to the Harvard's class of 2005. Just like the other story, this one is also full of sophisticated vocabulary. In this one Mahalia goes out looking for food and scurries into a college student´s backpack sniffing out some cheese when all of a sudden the zipper closes. She comes out later in the middle of a class and is entranced by the professor´s words warning his students that this is a very advanced class. She stays on to study and eventually graduates and is finally reunited with her family at graduation day.

We are having so much fun with these books that we are going to try more John Lithgow books and CD´s. He even has a website that I think is pretty cool.