A Good Book Drive in Toronto

I am a big fan of reading and always have been. I think that it’s an important part of life and when I meet a person who tells me they have never read a book, I feel confused. I remember being read to as a kid and I remember how my imagination grew from hearing all of those fantastic stories. When my pal Lana Gay told me that she would be organising a kids book drive in Toronto, I immediately asked how I could help. A Good Book Drive originally began in Vancouver in 2012 and since then it has expanded to Brooklyn, Calgary and now Toronto. For the month of February, locations all over Toronto have boxes where you can donate your new or gently used favourite kids book. The books donated are going to the fabulous Children’s Book Bank located in Regent Park. The Book Bank provides literacy programs for kids and every kid that visits is allowed to take a book home to keep forever. What makes A Good Book Drive that much more special is that those donating books are encouraged to fill out a label to personalise the book and to let the kid receiving it just why they think that the book is awesome. I love that. With this drive in Toronto, our goal is to raise 1,000 books before the end of February.

For the past couple of weeks I have been running around town taking portraits for A Good Book Drive and it’s been a lot of fun. These photos of people with their favourite book will then be featured throughout the month on the A Good Book Drive website where you can read a little bit more about them and their book.

My question for you: what is your favourite kids book and why? I really hope that this blog post encourages you to help out. You can see the book box locations here.

(Pssst! Recognise any of these faces? I spy Raina, Brendan Canning, Amber J and Hannah Georgas to name a few!)