Open Books Mad-lib Blogathon to promote literacy in Chicago

July 15, 1:26 PMChicago Literary Scene ExaminerRobert Duffer

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Starting at 4am CST on July 25, Open Books will be hosting a worldwide 24-hour Blogathon to raise money and awareness for literacy. The three-year old Chicago-based non-profit is seeking volunteers, donors, bloggers and anyone interested to help raise $2500 to provide an entire Chicago elementary school with Open Books Buddies. Buddies are literacy volunteers who read stories one-on-one to elementary school children to help foster a love of reading. The idea behind the Blogathon is that bloggers and volunteers solicit donations from sponsors who will in turn expect them to post something every half-hour for an entire day.

"Open Books will present 48 irreverently innovative shared stories of fun and frivolity...or, in plainer English, 48 of our infamous Mad Libs, drawn from classic works of fiction and embellished by YOU, our friends across the country! Nabokov with a nose ring? Melville full of monsters? Dumas and a dragon? All of these (and hundreds more) are possible! There will most likely be at least one contest. Might it be a virtual scavenger hunt? Is it as easy as a trivia post? Only time will tell, but prizes are almost certainly in the offing. There will be jokes. There will be quotes. And at the end of that wild 24 hours there will, with your help, be a class of elementary school students in Chicago who will get an entire semester of Open Books Buddies for the 2009-2010 school year."

If it sounds fun, odd, innovative, quirky, and socially and culturally beneficial, then it sounds like a true Open Books initiative. In the fall they'll be opening their expanded literacy resource center and used bookstore, quadrupling the size of their current space at 213 W. Institute Pl., right off the Chicago stop of the Brown Line. For over an hour this morning I met with Becca Keaty, Director of Marketing and PR, and it's hard not to get excited about Open Books service and ambition. This is a non-profit that has the marketing savvy, brand-name creation, and ambition of a business. Instead of profit, however, the bottom line is literacy.

In just three years, Keaty and co-founder Stacy Ratner have amassed a 2,400 volunteer work army to fight illiteracy, have moved from a basement to a nearly 15,000 square foot space, and have a warehouse of a quarter of a million books to sell. The next step for Open Books is huge, especially given the precarious economic conditions, and could help raise the profile of not just literacy but literature in Chicago and beyond. The literary center is going to be a great, vibrant and necessary piece to the Chicago literary scene.

Check out the Blogathon and if you're jonesing for a new used book, check out their online bookstore. More news will be posted about the fall opening, including a more in-depth feature on Keaty and the Open Books mission.