Try reading this short story and closing your eyes to think about it:

Imagine you are four years old. Your parents farm the food you eat every day. You sing songs and dance in joy around your fruitful village with your many siblings. Life is good.

Now you’re five years old. You just started primary school and are so excited to get a freshly pressed pink and blue uniform, books and a composition notepad. You walk home from school with a smile on your face. Your mother looks frightened. She stumbles through your sack of clothes and sends you off to sleep in the jungle. You are too scared to sleep.

For five years you walk to school, never getting a new book or uniform again. Each night you hide in the jungle, fearing that you will be kidnaped and forced to attack your family, become a sex slave or to do whatever the rebels ask of you. This is the only life you could ever see for yourself.

Fast forward ten more years. You are now 20 years old and you are about to graduate from University with a degree in Accounting. You have a fresh pressed uniform again, loads of books, and control of your future. Your life has completely changed.

What happened?

Watch Agnes’s story to find out.

What did you do with your college textbooks when you graduated college?

I sold mine at the University of Virginia Bookstore and took the fresh cash to a cute boutique for a new dress and to Harris Teeter for a bottle of cheap champagne to celebrate.

Too bad I had not yet become aware of Better World Books. I sure hope I would have sold, or even given, my books to them. I still could have used the extra cash on silly splendors but others, who could barely dream of a shiny new dress or enjoying a bottle of bubbley, would greatly benefit too.

Here’s just a glimpse of what our student partners have been able to support in 2011 with their used textbooks:

Many students’ efforts on campus generated funding for Books For Africa. Books For Africa recently shipped its 25 millionth book to Africa, and was given a Charity Navigator 4 star rating for the 5th consecutive year, which means you can feel well assured that the funding and books raised by our wonderful book-drivers are being put to great use.

Others chose to support Room To Read through their campus book drives. Room to Read recently distributed their 10 millionth book, and they have opened more than 12,000 libraries and 1,500 schools to date. They’re currently opening libraries in South Asia and Africa at a rate of 6 per day. If you have not yet read the story of how Room To Read got started, it’s very inspiring and available here. Two lucky, passionate, hard-working college book drive leaders will win the trip of a lifetime this summer to come with Better World Books and Room To Read to visit their projects in the developing world!

With Worldfund’s 10th Anniversary quickly approaching, they have already invested more than $12 million in Latin America, with a focus on intensive training programs for public school teachers. Worldfund is currently impacting 340,000 children every year with their teacher training efforts in Mexico and Brazil. The top-generating book drive leaders from last school year were awarded a trip with Better World Books and Worldfund to South America this summer. Check out their life-changing experience in this video.

Read more…

He’s in the 9th grade. He and his mom were recently evicted from their home. He began this year on a 5th grade reading level. But thanks to you, Zachariah has hope – and a huge smile to boot.

Thanks to a partnership between Better World Books and Feed The Children, Zachariah now owns his very first book. Feed The Children does not only focus on feeding the literal hunger of children and families across America and worldwide, but also supporting healthy minds. With the help of Better World Books book donations, Feed The Children has distributed over 500,000 backpacks full of school supplies.

Zachariah’s success story would not be possible without you. Each time you donate or buy a book with Better World Books, students like Zachariah are given more opportunities to learn and grow.

Read more about how we met Zachariah.

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This year, our literacy partners at Invisible Children are proclaiming that the “The holiday spirit is the human connection”. Through their latest holiday campaign, they are helping to illustrate that with every purchase we make this year, we can choose to positively impact someone’s life – a concept very close to our hearts at Better World Books – and the foundation on which our entire business is based.

As a triple-bottom-line social enterprise, it is embedded into our mission, vision and even by-laws that we work towards the betterment of people and planet – not only profit. We are passionate about sharing our story with people like you to further the wave of conscious consumerism.

Today, you don’t only need to donate or volunteer to make an impact, you can simply be thoughtful about where you buy things you already need. For example, every time you buy a book with us, organizations like Invisible Children get funding – plus we donate a book to a student in need. Book for Book.

Here’s another way you can support Invisible Children with your gift purchases this holiday season… Read more…

Do you wish you had enough money to buy shoes, soap, shelter and books for every homeless child in our world – and also cute, trendy, smart items for your loved ones?While most of us cannot afford to buy two of every gift and ship one to someone in need and the other to our in-laws, nieces, long-distance lovers and bosses, there are companies out there who will do it for you, for free!

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Calling all writers, here’s a chance to have a renowned writer or literary agent critique your work!

We are honored to carry many of the meaningful titles we stock at Better World Books and one of those that means the most to us is What You Wish For, a special book full of a collection of the world’s best-selling and honored writers for young adults and children. The authors share stories and poems that captivate, inspire, and offer hope about things we all wish for. Together with Darfur advocate and UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador Mia Farrow, who wrote the book’s moving Foreword, they contributed to this amazing collection for free so that the proceeds could be used to fund libraries in Darfuri refugee camps in Chad.

Post by Yanna Constantinou, Better World Books’ Manager of UK AcquisitionsRoom to Read, our fantastic charity partner, which supports children to gain the lifelong gift of reading, has an amazing opportunity to leverage a £100,000 match fund and put 150,000 books in the hands of children in Asia and Africa: this week only, every online donation through The Big Give website will be matched pound for pound, effectively doubling your gift and its impact.  

Read more…

Thank you for being a loyal supporter and customer of ours, because you are also helping groups like Invisible Children. One of the coolest parts of Better World Books is that we are not asking you to donate money or time to us. We are simply hoping that you will make a conscious decision to buy something you are already going to buy from a company that matches your purchase with a donation.

Each time you tell a friend about us, donate a pre-loved book to us, or buy a book from us, people like Beatrice, below, benefit.

Our wonderful partners at Invisible Children are happy to share an example of their work with our funds through the spotlight story below. We hope you are inspired!

Mentor Spotlight: Beatrice

You can watch Beatrice’s story at http://vimeo.com/29133773. (password: lspsupp0rters) Read more…

Imagine back to being in the 5th grade. Homework was just beginning to get difficult. Word problems in math class were becoming longer and more complicated.

Anytime I had a question about my homework, my mom was by my side and ready to help. She tackled the seemingly endless word problems with grace and humor. Thanks to her perfect explanations, not only did I get the answers correct, but I understood why.

There are many young students across the world, and right here in America, whose parents are unable to help them with their homework, not because they don’t understand the math, but because they cannot read the words.5th grader Antonio spent most of elementary school as one of these children. His dad worked nights and his mom did not speak English.

Maria, Antonio’s sweet mother, tried so hard to help. Finally, she found her little miracle: the local library.

Thanks to your book donations and purchases with Better World Books, we were able to grant Maria’s library in Shirley, New York an award with our partners at the National Center for Family Literacy and today, Maria can successfully help Antonio with his homework. Thank you!

What are your thoughts on Maria and Antonio’s story? How does it make you feel that it happened thanks to YOU?!

Dear stellar students, the following is an exciting update from your campus reps at BWB.

We want you to put us to work at the warehouse of our partner, Books for Africa, so we can provide some much needed (wo)manpower in support of their efforts to end the book famine in Africa.

Now that Halloween is over, it feels like the remaining holidays for 2011 are rushing in to take its place. On November 1st I heard Christmas music playing in a sandwich shop and it seems like there are even more commercials on TV reminding you to go out and shop, shop, shop. As we still have some breathing room before the holidays arrive, it’s important to take a moment to stop and reflect on what we can all do to help others in need.

The Better World Books On Campus Team has definitely been thinking about this and we want to let you know about our November service project. (Read carefully because you play a very important part in the plan!)

Read more…