August 2010

School starts soon, in Laos and in many other countries. Would your school or class like to sponsor a book party at a Lao school? We've got some materials to help, including a short picture book you can download, which tells what life is like for a fairly typical child in Laos. Please see our special page for School Classes.

July 2010

You might think a 32-page book is short, but for a child who's never seen a book, and whose parents can't read, that can still seem like too much to start with. So we're developing some very short books: 8 pages, with just one short sentence per page. And we're trying to make them as much fun, for children and adults, as the longer books.

It turns out that very short books are a good starting-point not only for new readers, but also for new writers. We had a writing workshop for members of our staff who had no writing experience, and three of them then wrote their first books. They include La with The Hungry Frog and Jan with The Bird Carries His Brother. Then James, who learned desktop publishing and design skills here at Big Brother Mouse, gave them a crisp, appealing look.

May 2010

Thanks to support from the U.S. Embassy and Elefantasia Vientiane, we took books into remote villages that do not have access by road or river. Oh, we should thank Boom-Boom, the book elephant, and her friend, as well. In addition to sponsoring these elephant-based trips, the U.S. Embassy has sponsored home-based libraries and school libraries in 8 rural villages.

February 2010

As in so much of the world, traditional toys in Laos are losing ground to cheap, colorful plastic toys from China. But the traditional toys have many merits: They're cheaper; making them often is an enjoyable parent-child activity; they generally require more active participation from the child and may improve many physical and mental skills; when they break, they can be fixed with local materials and know-how; and when they break too much for that, they won't still be lingering around 100 years from now. Sonesoulilat, who has written several other books, including Game Time! has written a book describing how to make some of the most popular traditional toys.Thanks to a grant from the Global Fund for Children, we will soon publish it.

December 2009

The festive Hmong New Year celebration in mid-December gave Gikong, James, and Sy a chance to develop their reporting skills, collecting material for The Land of a Thousand Elephants, which the travel company Butterfield and Robinson is sponsoring so that people in Laos can learn about each province in the country. Here, James interviews three participants.

Forty-one village librarians came to Luang Prabang for a weekend workshop learn some new skills, and get more books. One focus of the event was to encourage reading aloud, both in the libraries, and within families.

November 2009

The Land of a Million Elephants: Most people in Laos, including our staff, have seen very little of their country, and don't know too much about it. We've begun work on The Land of a Million Elephants, which will show highlights of each province in Laos: Natural landmarks, historic sites, daily life, culture, crafts, ethnic groups, and people engaged in unusual, notable, or worthwhile things. Producing the book will offer our staff an opportunity to explore their country and to further develop photography, reporting, and writing skills. Here, we had a chance to see some historic puppets.

Lao fonts When we began publishing, the existing Lao font systems were difficult or impossible to use for publishing. So we created our own. After several requests, we've put together a package so that others can use it, too. Full information and downloads are on our new Lao Fonts page. (You can click here, or click Special Projects on our menu, and you'll see it listed.)

August 2009

More Libraries: A grant from Planet Wheeler, created by the founders of the Lonely Planet guidebooks to fund innovative grass-roots initiatives, and the Global Development Group will allow us to set up both village and home-based libraries in sixty more villages in the coming year. Thank you!

July 2009

Village festivals: We've decided that village libraries, like the libraries we set up in schools, will get off to a better start if we begin with a festival, that gets everyone excited about books, and let's them know what's available. This summer, we've developing ideas for these festivals, which will include games, traditional dance, short skits, and toys. And books, of course! But we've already got plenty of book pictures on these pages, so here are kids having fun with a new toy.

June 2009

Free books! Inside Laos, our books are priced so low that it's cheapest to buy copies if you can. But it will take time before we have thorough distribution throughout Laos, and shipments out of the country are difficult So we've posted PDFs of several books online. These can be used by emigrants who want their children to learn the language; anyone studying Lao; Lao speakers learning English; and teachers or organizations within Laos for whom this is the best way to get these books. On our menu, please click BOOKS, then DOWNLOADS.

May 2009

"Does anybody live on the moon?" That was the most common question we heard as we prepared our first book about the solar system and universe. It shows both that young people here are curious, and that they have no way to satisfy that curiosity. With the recent publication of What's in the Sky? and Inventions, we have a growing number books to satisfy and feed that curiosity. These are more expensive than smaller children's books, so a special thank-you to the sponsors, the Global Fund for Children and Nick Hubbard, who made them possible.

February-April 2009

Follow-ups: We visited some Village Librarians, in their village, as part of our ongoing evaluations. Most were doing well. Some needed help to let everyone know that the books were available, or to create enthusiasm about reading. We've decided that a village "books and education" festival, when each library opens, will help, and during the summer (when we cannot do school book parties) we'll develop that idea. A greater problem, faced in every village, is that even when people got enthused about reading, they quickly ran out of new things to read. The only solution to that is what we're already doing as fast as we can: Develop and publish more books.

January 2009

Home-based libraries: We started our "Village Librarian" experiments last August, with a group of 8 villages. (We previously used the phrase "Junior Librarians", but there is a full spectrum of ages, so we've changed terminology.) We talk with the village headman and other leaders in the village to select one individual who is reliable and is motivated to help the village. We begin by providing that individual with 30 varied books, for all ages, along with suggestions about how to make them available, then provide support and more books during the year. From what we learned, we've expanded to another 24 villages. In January, 29 of the 32 librarians came to Luang Prabang for a 2-day workshop to discuss how things were progressing, their successes and problems.

Archived News from 2006-2007. From 2008.