When Devyn Burton was 12 years old, he was diagnosed with lupus. As a result, Devyn started spending a LOT of time in the hospital. Over the years, he was frustrated to find that the Giving Library at his hospital didn't have much to offer in the way of YA books. Like nothing. Little kids' books they had. Main stream books they had. YA, not so much.In fact, this seems to be the case in a lot of hospitals. So much so that last year, YALSA and Readergrlz arranged for the donation of hundreds of YA books to a number of hospitals across the country. But the University of Michigan Hospital - where Devyn has had to spend so much of his time because of the lupus - was not one of them.
So he went on a crusade. He established an organization called Book Transfusion and set about asking authors if they would send a book or two that he could donate to the hospital. I was lucky enough to be one of those authors. I say lucky, because what Devyn is doing is beyond awesome. Over the year, he collected 103 books for the University of Michigan Hospital. And a donation of $100.
Today, Devyn delivered those books to the hospital.Devyn Burton is my hero.
If you'd like to find out how you can help Devyn in his quest to provide YA books to hospitals and brighten the stay of many a teen (and adult!) patient, visit his Book Transfusion blog. And stay tuned right here because in the coming months we've got something designed to help in a big way.
