buy books for laurel's students

i didn't read beowulf until college. but you can bet that, when i did read it, i wrote ALL OVER it. now, this is me we're talking about, and my marginal-note needs are maybe a little over the top. however, i can't imagine fully getting beowulf, as a twenty-first-century kid, without some serious marginal notes (history, etymology, definition, general underlining, you know?).

now get this: because of the crap system in which they find themselves, laurel's students are asked to read and understand beowulf from EXCERPTS in an anthology that they CANNOT WRITE IN and CANNOT TAKE HOME. this is only one of the many meannesses that kids in lots of urban schools are subjected to, of course, but it's one you can help solve.

laurel has set up a classroom blog that discusses her book-buying goals and will probably also be updated with other funding needs. from the blog (or, heck, directly), you can make a contribution -- first for copies of beowulf, then for other things that those of us who got the long end of the inequitable-education-funding stick probably take, or took, for granted.

she needs 35 copies. you could totally buy one of them. so do!