What is ‘The Whitstable Book Drive’?
In March 2023, as part of our World Book Day celebrations, we launched the Whitstable Book Drive – a Whitstable-wide initiative designed to provide every local child a good quality free second-hand book.
How to take part?
The Book Drive began as an alternative to the ‘free’ National Book Token titles that are released each year for World Book Day; but we enjoyed running it so much that The Book Drive now runs as a book swap, where instead of children giving us their World Book Day token, we ask for a good quality book that another child can then read.
Alternatively, donations can be made to The Book Drive Fund to purchase a book. This fund is going towards our work with schools, and some donations have been put towards specific local schools (for example, a parent from Joy Lane might ask us to donate specifically to our work there). To make sure we stay well stocked for every child wanting to take part, only 2 books can be taken from the Book Drive per child.
Why do we do it?
We wanted to give something back to the children in our community in honour of World Book Day, and we were especially focused on making books as accessible as possible for every single family in Whitstable. With the Book Drive, children can access good quality titles at low cost, and share these books with other children once they have finished with them!
HOW TO DONATE
Have a look at home for any children’s books that your kids no longer read or want and might be willing to donate so another child can enjoy it!
Pick a book from our super second hand selection, donated by our wonderful community.
Swap the book you have already read! Each time you visit, you can swap a maximum of two books, just to make sure we always have plenty of stock for everyone!
If you don’t have a book to swap but still want to take part, you can make a small donation to our Book Drive Fund; this money will go towards all of our work with schools.
Do this as many times as you like! If your child would like to come back and choose another free title, they can! All we need is for them to bring a quality title they no longer want to swap it for another!
Please note – any kids who come in to browse and buy/book swap from the Book Drive Books are customers like anyone else, they should feel free to take their time, browse the shop and will be made to feel welcome by our friendly staff. We can’t wait to meet them and chat to them about reading.
HOW TO DONATE
Have a look at home for any children’s books that your kids no longer read or want and might be willing to donate so another child can enjoy it!
Take your donation into school, or bring them into Harbour Books by Monday 27th February.
On Thursday 2nd March, your child will receive a free World Book Day Token – hold onto it!
Bring your child into Harbour Books where they can browse our Whitstable Book Drive section and use their token to “buy” any book in that section. (OR they can use it as a £1 off a brand new title if they prefer to do this).
Do this as many times as you like! We’ll be running this initiative as an ongoing kids book swap through to the end of March, if your child would like to come back and choose another free title, they can! All we need is for them to bring a quality title they no longer want to swap it for another!
Please note – any kids who come in to browse and buy/book swap from the Book Drive Books are customers like anyone else, they should feel free to take their time, browse the shop and will be made to feel welcome by our friendly staff. We can’t wait to meet them and chat to them about reading.