Twice Upon a Time / Il était deux fois
33 Quill St Ottawa, ON, Canada

The 2021 Twice Upon a Time AGM will be held on Sunday, May 16 at 2:00 PM. We'd love it if you joined us! To RSVP and receive the Zoom coordinates, please let us know through our contact form (https://bit.ly/3nQx12m) or via Direct Message here on Facebook.

April 18 to 24 is National Volunteer Week! Over the past year, the Twice Upon a Time volunteers who acquire and sort books to deliver to our community partners have been absolute rockstars. We can't thank them enough! #VolunteersBringChange #NVW2021

Twice Upon a Time would like to acknowledge support from RTO (The Retired Teachers of Ontario Les enseignantes et enseignants retraités de l’Ontario), for our "Kids Today! Special COVID-19 Project." We teachers and thank you so much for this contribution! We'd especially like to thank District 27 - Ottawa Carleton for their support.

Doing some springtime de-cluttering? We'd love to receive your very gently-used children's books for our program! Please see our website for the full descriptions of books we can take (and those which we must decline), as well as how to donate books to us. https://bit.ly/3kQBPDl

Twice Upon a Time gratefully acknowledges the support of the Ottawa Community Foundation for our "Kids Today! Special COVID-19 Project." Their funding has helped us carry out our special book deliveries during the pandemic, bringing the joy of reading to many Ottawa kids.

Another delivery in our "Kids Today! Special COVID-19 Project"! Last week, we delivered some great books to the Queen Mary Street Public School. We love the opportunity to work with schools, so thank you to the staff at Queen Mary Street PS for partnering with us!

Due to the COVID-19 situation in Ottawa, Twice Upon a Time has made several decisions regarding our free bookstores and other activities during this difficult time. Please visit our website for the full (and on-going) updates: https://bit.ly/2UdeTky

We're into our second round of the Kids Today! Special COVID-19 Project, and we'd love to hear from you if your organization would like to share the love of reading. We've given over 1000 books so far this year, and we want to do more! See our site for details (https://bit.ly/36VCTPA) and get in touch if we can help!

I only started reading at 17, and it completely changed my outlook and mentality. I just wish I was offered the opportunity to really engage with reading more as a child, but books were never a thing we could budget for as a family when we needed to put food on the table. There were times where the escapism of reading could have really helped me. I want this escapism for all children. Not just those that can afford it. "

This week's #FaveBookFriday is "Bear for Breakfast" by Robert Munsch and illustrated by Jay Odjick. If you liked their first collaboration "Blackflies" (another fave with our kids and volunteers!), then check this out! Also: it's available in English, French, and Algonquin!

Our #FaveBookFriday pick this week is "Violet" by Canadian author Tania Duprey Stehlik. Violet's mom is red, her dad is blue, and Violet is violet! This is a wonderful story about acceptance, with beautiful illustrations by Vanja Vuleta Jovanovic.

Meet Stéphanie! Stéphanie, previously our Acquisitions Co-Lead, stepped into the role of interim Vice President as of our AGM last month. Outside of Twice Upon a Time, she works at a research centre helping to promote Canada's brightest and best in Ottawa and across Canada. She joined the Twice Upon a Time crew in 2018 after doing a library project with her son where they visited every library in the Ottawa-area and noticed there were some branches that had little to no children's books in French. Twice Upon a Time's mission to provide free books to kids in both of Canada's official languages made her heart sing, and we are so happy she decided to join us. "I am thrilled to be part of a fantastic organization whose mission and simple and impacts kids in such a profound and impressive way. "

Ottawa kids LOVE "Hair Love" - our #FaveBookFriday pick this week! We've purchased several copies of this book by Matthew A. Cherry and art by Vashti Harrison, and they never last long at our free bookstores. (Of course, we love the short film, too! https://youtu.be/kNw8V_Fkw28)