Tomorrow is Purple Day – Supporting Epilepsy Around the World
March 26th is Purple Day, an international day to promote epilepsy awareness and my friend and fellow book blogger Cari from Book Scoops is hosting a Purple Day mini-challenge.
Cari’s beautiful daughter was diagnosed with epilepsy five months ago. Cari and I not only attend book club together but my little boy really loves to play with Cari’s daughter. We have spent many a day enjoying the sunshine in their front yard while the kids play on the swing set. Having witnessed Cari struggle through this new diagnosis the past few months, I want to support her in epilepsy awareness.
Cari and her sister Holly are hosting a mini-challenge for Purple Day.
Details from the Book Scoops blog:
Who Can Participate and How to Participate?
There are number of ways to participate in our first annual Purple Day Challenge and because we love to promote literacy we are combining both reading and Purple Day starting on March 21st and ending on March 31st. While our blog focuses on children and adolescent literature we are inviting anyone to go purple!!!! So that means any person, book blogger or blogger who wants to promote Purple Day may participate. To make this easy on you (and us) choose any or all of the following.
- Post the Purple Day Button on your blog starting on Sunday March 21st through Saturday March 27th and write a post promoting Purple Day. Please note we have received permission to use the Purple Day logo as part of this challenge. If you choose this option you must read and agree to the copyright notice on the Purple Day website by using the logo you are stating that you have read and agree to their terms of use. Two sizes of buttons are at the bottom of this post.
- Read a book about epilepsy and post a review. For a list of books for children go to Epilepsy.Com.
- Read a book by or about a famous person with epilepsy and post a review. Cari’s daughter’s favorite so far is The Day-Glo Brothers: The True Story Behind Bob and Joe Switzer’s Bright Ideas and Brand-New Colors, which also is a Cybils winner for 2009. Some names you might know are Harriet Tubman, Alfred Nobel and Charles Dickens and more recently actor Danny Glover, football player Alan Faneca and track star, Florence Griffin Joyner known as Flo Jo. For a more complete list visit The Epilepsy Foundation or if you’re a fan of Wikipedia see the List of Famous people with Epilepsy, which to be honest seems to be the best documented list we’ve found so far.
- Read a book that promotes self-confidence and acceptance in children and post a review. Suggested books so far with a very appropriate title, Purplicious by Victoria Kann and Elizabeth Kann and Little Skink’s Tail by Janet Halfmann, illustrated by Laurie Allen Klein.
- If you or a family has dealt with epilepsy write a post sharing your experience.
- Wear purple on March 26th and tell people why you are wearing purple.
- Click on the link to watch the 60 Minute Special on Epilepsy and write about what the things that you learned you in a blog post, or if you don’t have a blog put it in the comments for this post.
- Have an idea not listed above submit it and we’ll give you another entry. Cari’s niece is making 600+ purple ribbons for her school. So if you think of something put a comment in the comments below.
For every entry we receive, Cari will donate 25¢ per entry for a total of fifty dollars to a non-profit organization that works towards epilepsy awareness and/or research and Holly will match Cari’s donation. Multiple entries are possible. One entry equals doing one of the seven items listed above.
Their goals are three-fold: 1) to promote Purple Day and raise epilepsy awareness, 2) to dispel myths surrounding epilepsy and 3) to compile a more comprehensive list of books that portray epilepsy and/or people with epilepsy accurately, especially for children. Finally we do hope to raise some money for epilepsy awareness.
As you can see, I am posting about Purple Day and displaying the Purple Day logo in my sidebar. I will also be watching the 60 Minute Special on Epilepsy. Tomorrow I’ll post a book review for Little Skink’s Tail (glad to know I already have the book in the house!).
Visit Cari’s blog for more information and resources about epilepsy. I would LOVE to see Cari receive support for this mini-challenge (as easy as wearing purple on Friday and telling others why) and to spread awareness about epilepsy. Her little girl is beautiful, bright and just had a Rapunzel’s Revenge themed birthday party. You got a love a gal like that!
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This going to be a mouthful, but my sister-in-law’s sister’s son was diagnosed with epilepsy a few years ago. They told me about tomorrow being purple day and I think it’s a great idea, especially since I have a ton of purple to wear with it being my favorite color.
I don’t have time to read a book about epilepsy right now, but I’ll help pass along the awareness. 
on March 25th, 2010 at 8:36 amI’m Jenni’s Sister-in-law’s Sister.
I found out about Purple day just at the beginning of this week and I love it! Friday will be outrageous purple day at our house, complete with hats. :0
Epilepsy is so misunderstood. There is a stigma attached that must be dispelled. I have met intelligent, well spoken people who have been outcast and made to feel like they are invisible, defective or freakish! It’s apalling.
Thank you for hosting this, thank you on behalf of my son and the 50 million others worldwide that have been diagnosed. My love to your friend and her daughter! Please pass on my support an understanding, we have been dealing with this for 4 years and I promise, it does get easier! Thanks again!
on March 25th, 2010 at 10:14 amthanks for telling me about Purple Day. I’ve had some form of epilepsy practically all my life. I’m glad there is some support of there!
on March 25th, 2010 at 12:03 pmthanks, again! I will wear purple tomorrow!
Natasha! Thank you for posting this. I really appreciate it. I know a lot of people may not have the time to read a book this year, but my sister and I hope to do this again next year with more notice. I found about Purple Day a little over 2 weeks ago and this is what we came up for this year. We just want to help dispel some of the all to common myths about epilepsy and make people more aware of this disorder. Thanks again and if I could give you hug through the computer I would.
on March 25th, 2010 at 4:41 pm[...] Books, real life friend of Cari. Our children play together. Here are the links to her post about Purple Day and her review of Little Skink’s [...]
on July 14th, 2010 at 1:53 pmI am a young woman who has been living with Epilepsy for 6 years. When I graduated one year later from high school I had bad migraines which became seizures, which followed by uncontrolled seizures up to 7 a day and as years went on my life stop. I lost my first great paying job and was not allowed to continue college because of my seizures in class. As a result my license was revoke. And it got to the point where I stop living I was trapped in the house because various times I was robbed and treated badly. In 2008 I decided to have brain surgery cause the seizures increased, and my life started to changed although the surgery was great it reduced my seizures but did not take them away and I was able to return to school, and I graduated with honors, and I do what I love to do sing, and write and I will be completing a alum by Nov and releasing it 1/28/11 donating 3% of the proceeds to the epilepsy foundation. Go look for me on facebook at Shariese Katrell or Katrell Musiz and share your story with me.
on August 14th, 2010 at 10:59 am