Rewind. Recap.
We received a fabulous response (44 entries!!) for our ‘Retell, Remix and Rejoice with Chuskit contest‘. Our judges are going to have a tough (but fantastic) time trying to decide who the winner of this contest will be. So, please be patient with us…and we will announce the results by the end of this month or the beginning of next month.Read our social publishing strategy and please chip in with your ideas and comments on how we can reach our goal of ‘a book in every child’s hand’ and help us build a reading community.
The book ???? ??? ??????? ?? ????? ????? ???? ?????? ?????? ???????? ?? ??? ?? ????? (translated as Shall I Give You a Good Book? A Book for Amateur Book Activists) has now been scanned and is available on our Scribd account. The book is an excellent resource for people who want to start community libraries in villages and small towns, or hold book exhibitions to create awareness about the vast amount of reading material that is available, or even run small bookshops.
From The Very Hungry Caterpillar to the gothic horror Dracula, the publisher Puffin has compiled a list of its 70 best books of all time for children. We loved the ‘Alice for iPad’ video. Atomic Antelope shares how this application for the iPad was made. The children’s publishing industry in India continues to grow with new titles, new themes and Indian authors. Several forums have sprung up across cities in India, online and real, to promote the cause of poetry. ‘Our Toxic World‘ is a graphic novel that speaks about the little things that we can do in our everyday lives to make the world greener and better. Over 1 million digital books are now available to the print-impaired for free on the Open Library site. ‘One Book, One Twitter‘ launches a worldwide book club with Neil Gaiman. Alight Here is finding poems and images inspired by each of London’s 270 underground stations and hoping to publish a book showcasing the winning 270 entries too. ZooBurst is an augmented reality program that creates dynamic pop-up books on your computer screen using just a Webcam and an Internet connection.
Read what one of the Teach For India Fellows, Veena Verma, has to say about inculcating the habit of reading in her students.
Shweta Ganesh Kumar asks if you are a book Nazi and judge people by their book choices. Michael Norris, an American publishing expert, will release findings in the monthly Book Publishing Report which show that, despite the best intentions, it is well-meaning mothers and fathers who often stop their sons and daughters from picking up the reading habit. Find out why you should allow your children to choose what they read.
“You Make the Story – The Creativity Workshop for Kids” is a great example of the use of Print on Demand books. Smories are free original stories for kids, read by kids. Think It Ink It Publishing offers professionally illustrated wordless picture books in which kids can write the story and become authors. One Million Giraffes is a fun FUN fun project. Click here to read more about a man’s mission of collecting one million giraffes!
The Skipping Stones Magazine’s Youth Honor Award Program is inviting entries on multicultural awareness and nature appreciation. Last date for submission of entries is 25th June, 2010. Indian Voices is also calling for submissions to be included in a book anthology. Entries are due by 1st July, 2010. Here is a list of contests and workshops for children. Have you written a children’s story that is inspired by Asia? The National Book Development Council of Singapore and Scholastic Asia are jointly launching the Asian children’s book prize. The award, called the Scholastic Asian Book Award (SABA), will recognise Asians and children’s writers of Asian origin who are taking the experiences of life, spirit and thinking in different parts of Asia to the world at large. Entries must be submitted for consideration by 31st December, 2010.
The 48 Hour Magazine is an experiment in using new tools to erase media’s old limits. The magazine unveils a theme and people have 24 hours to submit their work. In the next 24 hours, they edit the magazine and the paper magazine is ready to be shipped out. Wikipedia now lets you create custom books from Wikipedia’s huge bank of free content. On the occasion of the publication of Ben Greenman’s ‘What He’s Poised to Do’ and in celebration of the art of the letter as a form of fiction, Harper Perennial invites you to participate in its Letters With Character campaign, and to write a letter to a fictional character.
Gabriel Levinson’s Book Bike is ultra cool. Take a look! While you are at it, you might as well take a look at Alberto Hernandez’s equally cool Hybrid Novels. Teehee, who wants a book planter in their house? Did you know that some of the bestsellers are also some of the books which were rejected quite a few times by publishers? Read about these famous book rejections. ‘Newspaper Blackout‘ is the result of poet Autin Kleon’s attempts to create poems by eliminating words on newspaper pages. This library in Netherlands got a fancy makeover…and does it look splendid or what? The ‘Travel with words, meet the world‘ advertisements from Penguin Books are examples of great use of typography.
Teach your kids about the various body systems by following this tutorial on Arvind Gupta’s site. A continuation of her last blog post – Rati Ramadas talks about unschooling after an interesting visit to the Children’s Museum in Houston.
Akshara Foundation is looking for a coordinator for programmes in primary schools in Bangalore.
Watch Anil Gupta’s TED talk on the developing world’s unsung inventors and indigenous entrepreneurs.
We leave you with Jane Mount’s lovely ‘Ideal Bookshelf’ Project.
Image Source : missjanetb
