Ryan The Lion: A Gift From Afar

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The "Ryan The Lion" book which flew all the way from Australia!
When you make public your desire to do something good (like collecting a library of simple books for your students), help can come from unexpected places.

The students at my school have very limited English so what is prescribed at secondary school is usually too challenging for them.
While forcing the horse to drink the bitter prescribed alphabet brew, I've spent many years sourcing for colourful children's books with simple English. These books are at the level of my students & very fascinating for them to read or just flip through. I'm hoping that, for once, reading English will actually make some sense to them.

They also happen to be too expensive for my school to pay for on limited government allocations (due to allocations given based on a small student population which has to be stretched across various subjects which need books in the library as well).
Fortunately, I am always able to find kind donors. This particular one was really special.

A few months ago, I got an email from someone who had read about the books given to my school by a local book fair company (they actually have a book fair running now until 21 Dec in Kuching). He was wondering if I'd like to have a copy of his book for my students. I checked out the reviews on Amazon & said, "Yes. Most definitely!"

Just like the book fair company, this stranger was willing to give something for nothing in return so I asked him whether he blogged as I wanted to add him to my blogroll. He did blog.
Only much later did I find out that he is an award-winning blogger from Australia & an e-Learning author, Ryan Tracey.
He never once said who he was or promoted any of his products. He just wanted to give & that was it. I am humbled by his kind act.

I received the book a few weeks ago & it is now placed in the library together with the hundreds of books kindly given by others to be used for self-access every day. (Classes at my school are allocated certain nights in a month to spend reading in the library.)

Thanks for your generosity, Ryan! God bless you!

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