Now in its eighth year, For the Love of Books, also provides two professional development opportunities for educators, one on Feb. 11th, beginning at 6:30 pm at Barnes & Noble’s Waterfront store and the second on Feb. 14th, beginning 9:30 am at Barnes & Noble in the South Hills.

Participating elementary schools include: McKeesport Area School District’s George Washington Elementary School; Brownsville Area School District’s Cardale, Central and Cox-Donahey elementary schools; Steel Valley School District’s Barrett and Park elementary schools; Bentworth Area School District’s Bentworth Elementary School; Monessen School District’s Monessen Elementary School; and Yough School District’s H.W Good, Mendon and West Newton elementary schools.

Among those entertaining the students will be: Storyteller Cynthia Battles; Illustrator Mark Brewer; Author Betty Fitzgerald Howard; Cartoonist & Storyteller Joe Wos; Read!365’s Readerella; and Illustrator & Storyteller David Pribish, who coordinates the Consortium’s Literacy for Life initiative.

In conjunction with events at the Barnes & Noble stores, the Consortium again will be collecting new and gently used children’s book as part of an initiative known as The Fifth Food Group … Food for the Mind that it launched seven years ago with a goal of distributing a million books to needy children within a decade. With the help of more than 60 local businesses and organizations that conduct book drives, the Consortium has collected more than 614,000 books to date. The books are distributed through the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank’s 340 neighborhood food pantries. Any company or organization that would like to participate can call David Pribish at 412-678-9215. All books collected can also be dropped off at any Guardian Storage Solution facility in the Greater Pittsburgh Region.