What a delightful idea from Penguin children’s books. Read a book online with a kid, and Penguin will donate an actual physical book to a reading-happy charity. You get to pick the charity.

Josie and I did this with Kiva — I think kids LOVE to ponder who and how to help. Penguin will be donating 2000 books to Room to Read, which builds libraries in Africa; 5000 books to World Vision for victims of the Haitian earthquake; 5000 books to school libraries in the USA through the NEA Foundation; 10,000 books to school libraries and non-profit research centers in Asia through the Asia Foundation; 5000 books to elementary and middle school students taking part in the LA County Office of Education’s Million Word Challenge; 4000 books to families participating in Volunteer USA’s Family Literacy Academies. I predict Josie will choose the last one. I’m dying to know what the book choices are, but you can’t see them until you’ve picked a charity, and I want to let Jo and Max do that. Grrr, suspense.

Go to We Give Books to participate. Thanks to GalleyCat for the tip.