I’m not falling for that one again.
As part of Book Week at the kids’ school, there’s a sponsored readathon happening. It’s a great way of getting the kids to get into reading, and our daughter has gone for it in a big way once again.
I’m being more careful with the sponsorship this time around, though. I got stung for a great deal of money last year.
Basically, the kids have to read an age-appropriate book, take an online test on it and score over 80%. The site tells them how many words they’ve read and then they can charge you according to what you promised them on the sponsor form.
Last year, I sponsored per word. It was a tiny amount, like 1c or something. I’ll tell you what else it was: it was a huge mistake.
We encouraged our little darlings to read as much as possible – like model parents should – and we got roundly shafted.
For context, a 300 page kids book like Gangsta Granny has about 33,000 words. Yes. I was equally surprised. Because that’s already R33o of cold hard cash for a book that was knocked off by Little Miss 6000 in just a couple of days.
The readathon lasts fourteen days.
Stuff got ugly. Let’s just say that we had to honour a four-figure sum in sponsorship money last year. I’m still smarting.
This year, I’m being equally encouraging when it comes to the kids reading as much as possible. But I’m going for a flat fee per book, rather than per word. The PTA will still do OK, the kids will still feel that they’ve done something of value, and we’ll be able to eat something more than naked Salticrax for the rest of the month.
Everyone’s a winner.