Charity organisation Furniture for Schools Cook Islands will be giving away free books today from 10.30am at BCI Bank in Avarua.

Furniture for Schools facilitator Piltz Napa said it received the fourth container of chairs and books donated in partnership with Pacific Assist New Zealand, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints charities and Scholastics NZ.

The container of goods is planned to go to the Pa Enua.

“What we have this time round is excess books, we have almost 200 cartons of books,” Napa said.

“That’s a lot of books for just a few schools because they only really need 10 and that’s a lot of books for the numbers of students there as well.”

Napa said with the shipment landing on Literacy Week it was the perfect time to get children reading.

“Here’s an opportunity for parents to challenge their children for the rest of Literacy Week, come and pick up a book or two – there’s going to be a lot of books – and challenge their children to read it,” he said.

“If they finish (reading) it, they can take it to the school and donate it to the library or they can pass it to somebody else, they can do whatever they want with it because we have a lot.”

Piltz Napa. 22090719

Napa said books were available for children of all ages and were good quality. 

Furniture for Schools will be giving out the books from 10.30am to 3.30pm.

Napa said last year, the “Little Red Riding Hood” books were sent to Penrhyn and in the past year the school had done a play based on the story from the book.

Furniture for Schools is a charity run by the LDS church. It has run for over a year and donates furniture and goods to the Pa Enua schools.