BERKELEY, Calif. -- You could say I have been busy. This past weekend I ran my first half marathon, and I also hosted a book giveaway for kids courtesy of iVillage, PBS Kids and Scholastic.

To encourage children to read this summer, the three companies joined forces to launch a FREE six-week summer reading challenge. Here is the link to receive:

★ A daily email with fun activities to build your child's reading skills
★ Tricks and advice from your Challenge coach
★ Great book suggestions for kids of all ages
★ Tips from other parents taking the challenge
★ A chance to win daily prizes

To help promote the challenge, which officially launched on Monday, I put together a "book brunch" with books and swag donated by Scholastic, PBS Kids and iVillage. I had seven other children join my two kids to eat bagels, create a "Summer Reading Challenge" poster, and take home books. Here were some of the titles we had for the older children:

Do you remember the Baby-Sitters Club series by Ann Martin? They really encouraged me to read, and I felt so nostalgic when I saw one of the books!

For the younger children, we had the Martha Speaks chapter books. We also handed out activity books and reading charts so that kids could keep track of the titles they read over the summer.

The kids, by the way, ranged in ages between 4 and 9. They hailed from Berkeley, Oakland and Richmond, California. Except for one of the kids, all of the children were bilingual -- Spanish and English. While there was information in Spanish to hand out to the families, I would have loved to have seen some titles en español as well.

But considering that everyone left my home beaming, I would say that the cause of summer literacy was quite popular with my crowd. Here are more photos from the day: