Give the gift of reading to a child this holiday season!

The autumn/winter holiday season has begun and gift giving is on many people's minds. Scholastic Books is also thinking about gift giving and they want your help. This year, Scholastic, The UPS Store and Marine Toys for Tots Foundation are gearing up for the holidays with the READ EVERY DAY holiday campaign to promote the love of reading and encourage all families to help give books to kids who need them most, including those who lost books due to Hurricane Sandy.

Here’s how you can help:

1. Download Storia®, Scholastic’s teacher-recommended children’s ereading app, and help pass on the reading to kids in need. Upon downloading Storia, families will receive five free children’s ebooks (Scholastic chooses them so they may or not be relevant to your kids needs and wants) to start a home digital library. For every additional ebook purchased on Storia now through Dec. 31, 2012, Scholastic will donate a children’s book to a child in need through the Toys for Tots Literacy Program (with a minimum of 50,000 books committed).
2. Visit a participating The UPS Store location across the U.S. now through Dec. 31, 2012 to purchase a donation card to benefit the Toys for Tots Literacy Program, a year-round initiative of the Marine Toys for Tots Foundation. Every dollar donated helps provide new books from Scholastic for less fortunate children in local communities throughout the U.S. Customers can also donate online at The UPS Store Facebook page.  As part of the longstanding collaboration with Scholastic Literacy Partners, The UPS Store location that raises the most money during the holidays will receive 500 books to share with families in their local community.

This holiday literacy drive is part of Scholastic’s global literacy campaign, Read Every Day. Lead a Better Life, an effort to help all children experience the love of reading and owning a book.
Help us spread the holiday cheer – give the gift of ereading and we’ll donate a book. It’s that easy!

I downloaded Storia and it seems like an okay app, though not the most user-friendly. You have to set up bookshelves when the program first starts up. When you click on a bookshelf, after setting it up, the upper right has a "More eBooks" icon in the upper right. Clicking it gives you a pop up with five more books; however, clicking on the book info does not do anything or take you to the book's page. So, if you want more info about that book, you have to leave the app. Now, that may be so that kids can't accidentally purchase a book when using it but as an adult using the app, it was annoying. I can't use the program in my classroom and I don't have kids of my own so I won't really use the app but I was curious about it. I perused Scholastic's blog and they do have posts on using Storia with children so that's a plus.

Regardless,  I'm pleased that Scholastic is working to help young children and their families. I will definitely be visiting my local The UPS Store location to donate books. Take a few minutes this season, or better, all year long, and give the gift of reading.