Photograph by Jacqueline Ramseyer
Trick or Read: Willow Glen resident Rebecca Morgan has been collecting books to give out instead of candy on Halloween. She had local children (from left) Hayley Woodward, 6, Annalise DeLano, 10, Daniel Reiton, 7, and Sammy DeLano, 9, dress up and hold some of the books she's collected.
Willow Glen resident says books can make good Halloween treats
Morgan hopes to expand program across the nation
By Moryt Milo
When Willow Glen trick-or-treaters come knocking this year, Rebecca Morgan hopes books will be added to the candy in their Halloween bags.
Her new program, Books for Treats, is geared toward adults who want an alternative to dishing out candy. The purpose of the program is to get children excited about reading and inspire them to learn.
"There are many literacy programs," Morgan says. "But this is the first time one is being linked to an event and replacing something already there."
The Willow Glen resident began distributing books instead of candy at Halloween in 1994. She had been unsatisfied giving candy away for a long time.
"I ate the good stuff before Halloween," Morgan says. "Then I went out and bought the bad stuff, and it would hang around forever."
In 1994 she went to a Willow Glen Branch Library book sale and noticed books sold for $1 an inch. A dollar could buy five to 10 children's books. She says thrift stores and libraries sell children's books for as little as 25 cents each.
"For the price of candy, I could give books," Morgan says.
She decided to give the idea a try but was uncertain how the children would respond. The clincher came when one child, age 9, rang the bell and initially seemed disappointed about getting a book instead of candy. Morgan says he walked away but changed his mind and returned to Morgan's door asking her if she had any Goosebumps stories. She said yes. The young boy chose one and ran to the curb yelling, "Mommy, I got a Goosebumps!"
Seven years later she is known as the "book lady," and her annual book-giving has grown from 50 to 150 books.
"Now we have parents who say, 'My kid wanted to make sure he came here to get a book,'" Morgan says.
She says the key to the program's success is allowing children to choose their own books instead of handing them a book they are not interested in.
Morgan, a motivational speaker, and her husband Robert Fish, a former professor at Southern Illinois University, come from an environment of lifelong learning. For them, replacing candy with books made sense, Morgan says. Her background also helped inspire the organization's logo: "Give kids brain candy. Feed their minds, not their cavities."
Books for Treats is still in its infancy. The organization had a donation booth at Willow Glen's Dancing on the Avenue event in June, but Morgan says they only collected a few hundred books, which wasn't enough.
She says the organization, which is in the process of filing for 501(c)3 status to become a nonprofit corporation, will be able to receive donations from publishers and organizations like Toys for Tots once its nonprofit status is official. Morgan says Toys for Tots receives more than 12,000 books a year from publishers and has no one to give them to. She sees Books for Treats as the perfect solution to their problem.
The program's long-term goal is to take the books available nationwide and make it simple for anyone to replace his or her Halloween candy with books.
Within the next year Morgan hopes to have a program in place where anyone can log onto the program's website and request a presorted box of 60 books. Books for Treats will mail it to the home in time for distribution on Halloween. Each box will cost between $12 and $15, and customers will be able to order as many books as they want, she says.
The program, online at www.booksfortreats.org, offers a free downloadable kit that includes a sign to put in a window, bookmarkers that explain the program and dividers to sort the boxes of books by grade levels.
An ideal Books for Treats box contains "gently read" books sorted for children ages 0 to 12, from pre-kindergarten through sixth grade, Morgan says. It is important to sort the books roughly by age, using the dividers offered in the kit, she says, adding that a person should not get hung up on whether a book is placed in the right grade level: The importance of separating the books is to make choosing one easier, as children and parents look through the box.
"It is much easier to look through an organized box of books then try to dig through a pile of books," Morgan says.
She says she wants to encourage people looking for a candy-giving alternative to try the book-giving idea. She says one of her neighbors told her, "I would like to give books, but I didn't want to steal your thunder."
Morgan says she responded, "I would love it if the whole block gave books."
For more information on the Books for Treats program, visit www.booksfortreats.org or call 408.998.7977.
Willow Glen, California Since 1992
