USS Boxer Humanitarian Mission

A few weeks ago, my son's preschool sent out a notice about a humanitarian mission that one of the parents was participating in as part of his role with the US Navy.

My son chose over a dozen stuffed animals from his collection to donate and Kane/Miller provided Spanish language books from our Libros del Mundo series.

Photograph from

Dougal the Garbage Dump Bear

by Matt Dray

Just this week, emails have been circulating with stories about the mission and the ways in which these books (and hundreds of stuffed animals) are reaching children in South America. This note was sent from Navy Dad, Jeremy, to his wife, who then shared it with the staff and family members from school:

You remember those donated books? Well 1 set was dropped off in Dental this afternoon and that is the PERRRFECT place to drop them off. Here's why:

They don't bring very young children on board for surgeries but a couple pre-teens do come on. I went there for a cleaning and noticed an 8 or 9-year-old girl sitting with one of our translators. I turned to the Dental Officer who is a buddy of mine and said, "Isn't she a little young to be here for surgery or dental work?" He said, "Yes, but when any adult comes in for surgery they have to bring an escort to help them home after the surgery. A few of them bring their older children as escorts. So while they are waiting in the Dental area for their friends/family’s surgeries to be done I always see if any of them need any teeth pulled or anything."

The girl was looking sort of bored so I remembered the donated Spanish kids books from Kane/Miller...I ran up to my stateroom and grabbed 1 of the 2 sets. I gave them to the enlisted translator and said, "Ask her if she likes to read and if she does tell her she can look through these books and take one or two." The translator asked her and she said, “Yes, she likes to read.”

While I was waiting I noticed the young girl going through them and she started reading one. When I came out afterwards I noticed she was gone and so was the book.

Kane/Miller loves being able to give back to the community when we can and we so enjoy hearing stories about how our books are used, and knowing that children around the world are now reading our editions - and translations - of some pretty wonderful books.

How has your school or family given back?

Live from Atlanta

Yesterday was the first day of the IRA conference. I met a young woman who claimed to be "obsessed" with Kane/Miller. In fact, she said she checks her SPAM folder on a regular basis to make sure our newsletter or correspondence didn't end up there, by mistake. She purchased a handful of titles and raved about the ones that she already owns. It was great to meet someone as devoted to Kane/Miller as I am.

I missed the afternoon workshop yesterday entitled Stories Ring the World: Engaging Learners with Great International Books. I heard about it from several people who visited our booth looking for the books that were mentioned during the workshop: Ziba Came on a Boat, New Clothes for New Year's Day and My Cat Copies Me.

Because I missed this important session, I made sure to hit two very relevant workshops today: In the morning, I went to the session on The Notable Children's Books in the Language Arts, presented by Deanna Day, Ed Sullivan and Evelyn Freedman (of the Children's Literature Assembly - CLA). This afternoon - after the exhibit hall closed - I joined the session on Bringing Outstanding International Children's and Young Adult Literature to the Classroom. I was fortunate enough to finally meet Carolyn Angus and say hello to Elizabeth Poe (both on the USBBY committee). USBBY has a recently updated website with resources such as booklists, projects & awards, conferences and publications.

I learned that these professionals, as well as several others that I know, will be presenting at the upcoming World Congress, held in San Jose, Costa Rica. I'm hoping to join them there this summer since many of their sessions (see page 25 of the tentative schedule) cover diversity, multi-cultural and international literature).

More updates from IRA tomorrow...