Who Cares!

We are Target Who and today we have been honoured with a mention in the hallowed pages of Doctor Who Magazine.  So, welcome Doctor Who Magazine readers, we hope you approve of our little Anniversary Year project.  

We found ourselves in the position of being able to commemorate this most special of years with a selfless act that not only celebrates our love of Doctor Who, but also symbolically passes the torch to the new generation of fans that will keep it burning bright for the next fifty years.  

However, the piece in Gallifrey Guardian doesn’t quite tell the whole story though.  For example, we started with 11,000 Doctor Who books, which turned out to be closer to 14,000 and now we’ve moved beyond even that as you can read in our post The Adventure of the Donated Detective.

Here’s a quick guide to the blog.  Up at the top you’ll find two counters.  The one of the left counts every single book that we place into schools, completely free of charge.  The one of the right is YOUR counter.  You see it might sound like we have a lot of books, but with the number of schools in the country - all with shrinking budgets and Doctor Who loving reluctant readers – we can’t reach them all.  We hope that YOU will like what we are doing.  We hope you’ll support us.  We hope you’ll simply be inspired by our project to buy a single book of your own and donate if you YOUR local school too.  You can read more about this in our post We Aspire to Inspire.  Several fans have already done this in the UK, Tasmania, Australia and New Zealand.  We hope more will follow in their footsteps and become part of our cause.  

Down in the right hand column you find links to some of our special features.  There is the pin map  that details the location of every book donated.  Click on those pins in Oceania.  Can we place a pin for you?

You will also find three photo albums containing photos of our books, our book donations and photos sent by teachers of Doctor Who in schools.  This is followed by links to news stories about Target Who that have appeared around the internet.

Also dotted around the blog you’ll find Target Tales, like The School on the Hill That recounts the tale of how one of our number discovered his love of reading with a Target novel.  Maybe you have a Target Tale to share too.  Please email them in and we may feature you as a guest blogger.  

You’ll also find the occasional report on some of our book donations, like The Universe Conspires when a member of our group returned to his childhood school to donate books - Maybe you could do the same?  There is also a special report from when we tested just how far we could get a set of books at zero cost to ourselves and we discovered that With Passion, Communication, Courtesy and Teamwork Anything is Possible...

You might also like our birthday tribute to Terrance Dicks - The Unsung Hero of Children’s Literature. There won’t be many features like this, because this project is not really about Doctor Who.  It’s about something far more important - Children’s literacy.  Many of the children in schools today regard reading as something they are ‘forced to do’ at school.  That opinion will change the first time they are completely captivated by a book.  The first ‘magic book’ that reaches inside their mind and makes them fall in love with reading.  Then everything will change - their reading skills, their writing skills, their confidence and their self-esteem.  They will flourish and the catalyst that starts this transformation might be a single book.  This is why EVERY book is important.  Every book has the potential to change a life.  Even that book - the one you’re thinking about right now. The book you read as a child that caused you to fall in love with reading.  Please support us by buying a copy of your ‘magic book’ and donating it to your local school.  Go on - change someone’s life.

We are Target Who.  We have big plans.  We are speaking to many people.  We have many surprises in store for you, but…. Shhh! SPOILERS!  You’ll have to keep watching the blog.