Book Drive for PAA 10th International Symposium Registrants

Registrants of PAA's 10th International Symposium are invited to bring books with them to Rarotonga to contribute to An Ocean of Books' book drive. Please bring books written in English that are suitable for 12-17 year olds. Topics that interest boys are of special interest, but topics can range from age-appropriate novels to modern reference books with great images.

The mission of An Ocean of Books is to help educate the children of the Pacific by focusing on literacy. Working with schools, we will provide the books needed to help develop a life-long habit of reading.

Jeff Evans launched An Ocean of Books in 2010 after visiting Niue High School and witnessing the lack of resources available. “The students are hungry to learn, but honestly, the resources are stretched beyond belief.” Jeff initially auctioned off a couple of photographs taken in Niue to raise funds to purchase a digital camera for Niue High School's Art Department. “It was great to help the High School, but of course I wanted to do more, so An Ocean of Books was born."

An Ocean of Books strives to see school libraries in the Pacific full to overflowing with quality books that will capture the imagination of children and inspire them. That’s part one of the plan. To keep the dream alive, we need to renew the books every 3-4 years so that the next crop of kids can have access to quality books as well.

Finally, we want to send enough books into the Pacific so that every new entrant can take home a book of their own on their first day at school. We want children to develop a love of books from the day they start school.

To help realize our dream, we’re collecting new and pre-loved books for distribution to needy school libraries in the Pacific (which accounts for near on 100% of the school libraries!) and cash donations to help buy new books from wholesalers or good used books from bookfairs.

We are proud to announce that we have now shipped 6,963 books to 12 schools in the Pacific. A little over 1,962 students attend the 9 schools spread throughout Niue, Samoa, Tonga, The Cook Islands, Vanuatu and Tokelau.

For more information, please visit An Ocean of Books' website.