infographic courtesy of Global English Editing
World Reading Habits in 2020 – Infographic
A night school for working kids in Pakistan
Founded by Mohammad Rohayl Varind in 2016 Slum School (Slum cleverly stands for Students Learning Under the Moon) is Pakistan's first solar powered night school. There are 23 million kids that do not go to school in Pakistan, many of whom work during the day! Varind's goal is to educate the underprivileged in hopes of one day winning the war against poverty, illiteracy & terrorism. The entire experience is solar powered with classes starting after sunset. Varind teaches the kids English, Urdu, math, and science with a little ethics and etiquette mixed in. Slum School does not purport to take...
The Cost of Reading in Prison: In West Virginia it’s 5 cents a minute
It is hard to fathom how they got here but the West Virginia Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation is charging inmates to read! As part of their contract with a private company inmates are provided "free" tablets in which they can access Project Gutenberg, an emporium of free, public domain texts. Sounds great right? Well, seems like free ain't free. From the Appalachian Prison Book Project: The per-minute charge will bring in far more profit than an e-book vendor who charges a set price for downloads, as the cost to read a book far exceeds the cost to purchase one....
First Book and Disney: A match made in heaven or… maybe not
First Book, a non-profit whose mission is to work to provide equal access to quality education, recently announced that they've now distributed 75 million Disney books to children and educators in need. Their tweet: Through our longstanding relationship with @Disney and @DisneyBooks we've reached an incredible milestone: together we've provided over 75 MILLION books to the children & educators we serve! We just wanted to say THANK YOU! #magicofstorytelling Founded in 1992 First Book has distributed over 185 million books to date. Almost half of which have come from Disney. While it is hard to argue about the need...
Sean Doolittle: Independent Bookseller’s MVP
Last April, Sean Doolittle, the closer for the World Champion Washington Nationals, started sharing on social media what he was reading and the independent bookstores he shopped at during each major league stop. Now, Doolittle has teamed up with the American Booksellers Association (ABA) to become 2020 Indie #BookstoreDay Ambassador. "I'm really looking forward to promoting these incredible local businesses that promote reading and literacy programs and authors and do so much to support their communities!" says Doolittle. Doolittle, you might recall, declined President Trump's invitation to the White House after the Nationals won the World Series because he didn't...