By Jennifer Baljko

Today, April 23, is a special day for book lovers, aspiring readers, and just about anyone else who has ever felt a jolt of excitement after running their fingers down a hard-covered spine or flipping through e-reader pages of their favorite tome.

It’s World Book and Copyright Day, as coined by UNESCO and the United Nations.

Historically, today honors writers Miguel de Cervantes, William Shakespeare, and Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, who are said to have died on this day in 1616. In Barcelona – where Worldreader is based – the festivities are more romantic. Hundreds of stalls line streets downtown, and women and men traditionally exchange books and roses to mark what they also call Sant Jordi’s Day.

Hovering over the tables, carefully deciding which book may offer the greatest promise, I’m reminded of conversations I’ve had recently with authors who have donated books to our program and Worldreader stories I’ve heard coming out of Ghana.

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By Jennifer Baljko

As our Director of Digital Publishing Elizabeth Wood pointed out, something’s caught our eye recently: Authors are so excited about Worldreader, they’re telling their friends about us.

That’s how we met Sylvia Vardell, an author and professor at Texas Woman’s University School of Library & Information Studies. Her colleague, poet Janet Wong, made the introduction (Read Janet’s post here).

Sylvia and Janet collaborated on Poetry Tag Time, an electronic-only poetry anthology for children featuring new poems from 30 contemporary poets. They donated the book, which launched April 1, to our e-reader program.

When asked why she wanted to get involved with Worldreader, she told us about her experience as a Fulbright Scholar at Zimbabwe University and in local schools shortly after the country’s independence. Continue Reading →

By Jennifer Baljko

As Elizabeth wrote earlier this week, Worldreader is developing some exciting relationships with international authors. Writers are actively engaging with our Books For All mission, and we wanted to thank them publicly for their support. We also wanted to connect them to our broader Worldreader community.

So we decided to ask them a few things we wanted to know: Which book made you fall in love with reading? Why do you think it’s important to share that love of reading with children in the developing world? Why did you decide to make your books available to Worldreader?  Continue Reading →