By Edward Nawotka AUCKLAND: Looking for an enhanced e-book that you can read in English, Spanish, Japanese, Italian Chinese or . . . Maori? Kiwa Media, a software developer in Auckland, New Zealand has has what you need. Throughout 2010, Kiwa Media has launched some fifteen enhanced e-books for children -– dubbed QBooks –- that function like typical illustrated e-books, …
How Young is Too Young to Publish?
By Edward Nawotka Today’s lead story looks at the controversy surrounding a bogus 23-book-deal struck with a six-year-old boy. On the face of it, it is simply absurd to think that a publisher would make such a deal, let alone with someone so very young. When I was five, I wrote a “book” called The Cat That Could Fly — …
Is Having Children an Unexpected Path to Publishing Success?
By Edward Nawotka Today’s lead story describes the success Mark Garcia-Prats’ mother found as an author in the midst of raising ten sons. While this story may seem extraordinary, it’s not unusual to find that authors have found the focus a child brings to a household is helpful to their writing. Think of Toni Morrison who forced herself to wake …
Would You Use Ripple Reader with Your Kids?
By Edward Nawotka Today’s lead story discusses the Ripple Reader, an e-book reader designed so parents can record themselves reading children’s picture books. As the father of a two-and-a-half year old, I have expressed my own reservations about reading e-books to children in the past. But something like this, particularly if I could get my daughter to record herself reading, interests …
Ripple E-Reader Enables Recordable, Read-Along Children’s E-Books
By Jaye Kephart, owner of Ripple Reader, www.ripplereader.com • Ripple provides a free e-reader for children’s picture books and allows parents to record themselves reading the text • Instead of just following along, children increasingly want to read and record the stories for themselves My sister died of cancer when her grandkids were only one and two years old. She …
Singapore Holds First Children’s “Content” Festival
By Edward Nawotka This past weekend, the first Asian Festival of Children’s Content was held in Singapore. It may be the first literary festival of it’s kind to replace the word “literature” with “content.” But, hey, Singapore has always viewed itself as a progressive nation-state. Claire Chiang, the festival’s advisory board chairperson, told Publishers Weekly’s Terry Tan: “We have had …
The Kids Are Alright! Why Digitization and E-books are Good for Literacy
By Kristen McLean, executive director of the Association of Booksellers for Children (ABC) After several hundred years with a stable model, some of our most basic ideas about books and reading are now under the microscope. The most pessimistic opinions tell us that the book as we know it is dead, but I don’t believe it. It is important to …
Against the Odds: Bringing Arabic Kids Books to Life in Beirut
By Olivia Snaije BEIRUT: Dar Onboz is a small, Beirut-based publishing company with big dreams. Founded in the spring of 2006, just before the Israeli summer bombing of Lebanon, Dar Onboz has faced down financial worries, problems with distribution and the general difficulties of running a company in country where the political situation is volatile and corruption is commonplace. The …
Jerry Pinkney and his family’s book dynasty
By Erin L. Cox In USA Today, Bob Minzesheimer writes a lovely piece about Jerry Pinkney who recently won the Caldecott Medal for his book The Lion & The Mouse. As the first individual African-American to win the Caldecott Medal, Pinkney is an inspiration to other African-American writers and illustrators…even the ones in his family. His wife, children, and their spouses …
How to Explain the Unexplainable
Editorial by Amy Koppelman Four years ago, when my father-in-law was diagnosed with cancer, my children asked my husband and me so many questions, most of which we couldn’t answer: “What is cancer? “Why does it happen?” “How is it diagnosed?” “How is it treated?” “Is it contagious?” I began Googling cancer books for children. There were several on the market, …