Book Dashing (aka making magic happen)
We're in the appropriately sunny Sunflower Library at Zonnebloem Primary on the edge of District Six in Cape Town, and it's exactly like stepping through the back of the wardrobe, except that this very South African Narnia is a completely happy place.
For me, taking part in a Book Dash day -- when groups of creative professionals get together to create free, open-access online and print books for children all around the world -- is worth a truckload of therapy and happy pills. The mission is simple: to put good books with local content into the hands of tens of thousands of small children, with the goal of every child owning a hundred books by the age of five. Does that sound impossible? Not if the Dashers have anything to do with it. Not only are the print books free, but you can download them onto a phone or tablet, translate them, print them and distribute them anywhere in the world.
How does it work? The rest of this blog will rely on pictures to convey the energy and yes, the magic.