Now more than ever... Join KO's I Dig Reading Challenge

You may have noticed this interesting badge in my sidebar for the last few weeks.  Read More, Give More?  I Dig Reading Challenge?  What's this all about?

KO of The Insect Collector knows that we're all readers, so she came up with the brilliant idea of tying in charitable donations with how many books we read that month.  It can be as much or as little as you want.  You can give a penny a book, or a penny a page.  A dollar a book.  Five dollars per book.  Your choice. The beauty of her I Dig Reading Challenge is that YOU choose both how much to give and what charity it give it to! You can also choose whether to tell the world or to keep it to yourself if you prefer.  

I pledged to give $5 per book.  Last month I read 11 books and gave the money to a brain aneurysm cause.  This month, I've read 12 books and I'm giving to Shelterbox for Japan.

But it's entirely up to you.  No pressure.  If you'd like to participate, hop on over to Katharine's blog and copy the cool bug badge she created (after all, her blog is called The Insect Collector).  Just give her credit!  Then sign up with her if you wish (there's a tab at the top), keep track of what you read, and pledge to give a set amount of money for every book you read in 2011.  (And it's never too late to sign up  -- I didn't start until February).

With the disaster in Japan this month, the New Zealand crisis in February, the ongoing problems in Haiti, and many other situations both around the world and close to home, isn't this the time to give money? And what better way to do it than by keeping track of how many books you read.

Now that's what I call multi-tasking.

(And if you're looking for a cool charity to give to, check out Shelterbox -- thanks to Maureen Johnson who's been raising money like crazy over on her blog and on Twitter to get these emergency shelters to New Zealand and Japan.)