Okra Picks: Great Southern Books Fresh Off the Vine
The Okra Picks are a dozen fresh titles chosen each season that SIBA Indie Bookstores want to handsell. These books should be southern in nature but can cover any genre, not just fiction. Southerners love their writers, and we want to be at the forefront of bringing them a strong selection of southern titles not to be missed each season.
A new harvest of Okra Picks will be announced each publishing season. To nominate a book you must be a SIBA bookseller.
Nominations can be emailed to: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Or, you can use our new nomination form
Follow #okrapicks on twitter!
Special offers for booksellers who eat. read. display their okra!
Earn $50 in SIBA Credit!
As a SIBA member, you can earn $50.00 in SIBA Credit each time you do an in-store Okra Picks display and report your sales of Okra Pick titles. The credit can be used for anything SIBA, including Trade Show registration and meal tickets.
Download the sales report form: 
okra picks sales report
One Book at a Time
- Last Updated on Tuesday, 21 May 2013 20:31
- Category: Okra Picks
SIBA Booksellers: Feed a Hungry Mind One Book at a Time
SIBA is partnering with the Family-to-Family poverty relief organization to support the One Book at a Time literacy project, which seeks to provide children living in poverty with books they would otherwise never have access to. One Book At a Time (OBAT) seeks to pair children living in poverty with donors who commit to sending their sponsored child a book a month for a year.
As part of the partnership, SIBA member bookstores will promote the literacy program to potential donors and sponsors, and provide reading lists and resources on their websites and with in-store displays for people who are interested in becoming involved in the program.
Our goal is twofold: 1) To use the community klout of indie booksellers to increase the number of donors who will sponsor a child in the OBAT program. 2) To bring indie bookseller expertise into the process of choosing books for children in poverty.
Email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. if you are interested in participating.
Badges | Links | Suggested Titles | Suggested Copy
Badge to link on your homepage:
Right-click to save the badge to your computer, then upload it to your website and place on your home page, linking the image to your own page of information and suggested title list
Links:
https://www.family-to-family.org/literacy-projects/one-book-at-a-time/
Family-to-Family logos:
Suggested Titles:
Grades K-1
Little Bear by Else Holmelund Minarik
My Five Senses by Aliki
Grades 2-3
My Father's Dragon by Ruth Stiles Gannett
Where Do Polar Bears Live? by Sarah L. Thomson
Grades 4-5
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
The Birchbark House by Louise Erdrich
Grades 6-8
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
Travels with Charley: In Search of America by John Steinbeck
Freedom Walkers: The Story of the Montgomery Bus Boycott by Russell Freedman
Grades 9-10
To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak
Grades 11-12
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell
Suggested Copy:
You can use the following suggested copy on your own website to explain the program to your customers.
One Book At A Time
Sponsor a Child with One Book a Month and Feed a Hungry Mind
When there’s not enough money in the house for food, buying your child a book is next to impossible. We believe hungry minds ache just like hungry bellies and using our “one-to-one” model, we are partnering with the Family-to-Family Poverty Relief organization to come up with a simple plan…a way to help feed the hungry minds of children in our sponsored families…One Book At A Time.
It works like this….Family-to-Family will match you to a child living in poverty in one of the communities they serve, give you the child’s name, age and reading level when possible, and ask you to send him or her one new book, along with a letter, each month. We ask that you commit to the program for one year, sending a total of 12 books and 12 letters. (The child will be encouraged to write back to you.)
If you’d like to send books each month for several children in one family, that can be arranged as well…just let your contact at Family-to-Family know. You can even add a book for the adults in the family.
You might think about asking your own children to help pick out each month’s book – something they have read and loved. If you buy the book in the store instead of on line, your kids can help pack it up and even write a note to the child it is going to.
Books should be sent to your sponsored child care of the outreach center address you will be sentwhen you receive the child’s names and age.
To begin, please email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. with your name, address and phone number. If there is a particular aged child you would like to help, mention that that as well, and they will try to accommodate!
Please note: Your donation of books or other items sent to a specific child/person does not qualify as a tax deductible expense.