Set it free !

You can either leave it behind for the next guest at your holiday cottage or villa and earn some “Karma” or why not follow your book around the globe using the “Bookcrossing” service?

BookCrossing tries to combine serendipity, adventure, altruism and literature in a unique mix that true bibliophiles must find irresistible.

Somehow similar to releasing messages in a bottle, or notes in helium balloons, BookCrossing hearkens back to fond childhood memories. BookCrossing aims at making the whole world a library and considers their service an ideal activity for parents and teachers to encourage children to read and share and the perfect way to encourage literacy and learning.

So how does it work?

• You can register your book on www.bookcrossing.com. Each book registered on BookCrossing receives its very own BCID (BookCrossing ID number), which enables members to “tag and track” the book as it journeys through life.
• The book is labeled with BCID and site information, then left somewhere (“released”) for someone else to find.
• People who find (“catch” in BookCrossing lingo) a wild book are invited to visit the site to see where the book has been and what previous readers have thought about it.
• They can make an entry about the book anonymously or join BookCrossing (it’s free!) and track the book’s future travels.
• Journal entries are relayed to all previous readers by our secure messaging system so that they, too, can follow the book’s adventures.

A (bit older) video about bookcrossing:

We invite you to give this service a try and please let us know what you think.

The journey is part of the holiday - how do you keep the kids entertained?

Bags packed, got the road map (and passports if you’re heading overseas), checked the car, everything’s good to go. The family is ready for its next cottage holiday. Load up the kids, and 45 minutes from home…”Are we there yet?…I’m bored”, yes, the little ones start piping up from the back. Without the proper ‘management’ it could well begin to feel like the longest journey ever.

So, to help out all those parents wishing to keep their sanity, we thought we try and gather some great, easy to play games to keep everyone amused.

Our ideas so far:

I SPY – the old classic, but can quite easily pass the time. The only question is, do you restrict it to items in the car, or venture outside…?

The Collection Game - set the topic, e.g “Cars with stickers on the back” or “Red lorries”, and see how many everyone can spot in the next 5 minutes.

In Car Karaoke – nothing more technical than picking a song and all having a really good sing-a-long.

I went to market and I bought… - Simple game, but tricky to play. Moving through the alphabet, each player adds an item to an imaginary shopping list. Start with player 1 who might say “I went to market and I bought an apple”. Player two then follows with “I went to market and I bought an apple and a bicycle” and so on. Each player has to recall (in order) the previous items in the list. Sometimes tougher for the adults than for the kids!

What other games should be on this list? What do you regularly play on long journies? Let us know by leaving a comment…