We are delighted to note that we have delivered over 20,000 e-books to children around the world. By our own (very unscientific) estimate, each book averages 5 readers when we include the classrooms where they are used. So we believe that over 100,000 young readers around the world have enjoyed the work of our book creators.

We are thankful for our book creators who believe in what we want to accomplish and who join us with their creative work. The joy we have each time we read new books submitted by our creators make all the effort to put this project together worthwhile.

Labels: children books, children's ebooks, e-books

The beauty of a web 2.0 site is that your users innovate with the tools you give them.

We originally saw the site as a book publishing tool. But Jennifer Poulter, an educational author form Australia, saw in Sharing-Books a tool to publish one page books that she calls poster-poems as classroom aids to help students learn poetry and/or help teachers introduce discussion topics relevant to their classes. The form of the poster-poem has been received well and Jennifer's work has been used in classrooms around the world. One of our authors, Urs Dietrich, who wrote Miki Makes a Promise, reported that on his last trip to Odessa, he visited a classroom where Jennifer's poster-poems were used to teach English.

Now it is author Timothy Schenk who published last week a surprise he had hinted was coming. Timothy has previously illustrated two poster-poems written by Jennifer. He also wrote and illustrated My Pretty Pointe Shoes that won the second prize in the July 2009 Simone Woods Awards. This time Timothy published our first talking book: Fan of Halloween.

Fan of Halloween demonstrates Timothy's technical know-how as he took advantage of a new feature Adobe introduced to PDF files, the ability to insert flash files. So as you download what looks like a normal and relatively small PDF file, you also download a little movie and a recording of Timothy reading his poem. When you click on the image of the pumpkin on the page, the pumpkin moves in as Timothy reads the poem.

This is very exciting and very promising. We deliberately limited the file type of our books to PDF so that universal distribution would be easy and that given the small size of the files, our books could be downloaded in low bandwidth regions of the world. Obviously this limited the books in being two dimensional. Now we can see the form of the e-book developing new and valuable attributes. Imagine a PDF e-book where a child can click on a cow and hear it go Moo! Or have an alphabet book read to them or having technical details added to a science book.

We thank Timothy for innovating with this first book and showing the way to one more imaginative use of Sharing-Books.com

Labels: children books, digital publishing industry, e-books, Halloween, J.R. Poulter, new features, picture books, publishing, teaching english, technology, Timothy Schenk

I remember that we were so excited when we celebrated our 1,000th book download. Then the 2,000th came much faster. We celebrated every 1,000 books increment up to 10,000. Then we decided to celebrate every 2,500 as the volume was growing. I tried to catch 15,000 to no avail. Now we are past 16,000. Hum! I mean 17,000. Oh well maybe we'll celebrate and post a screen shot when we reach 20,000 books downloaded.

Thank you for your enthusiasm for the creations of our authors and illustrators. Don't forget the Donate Button!

A.A. Milne, Creator of Winnie the Pooh, published in 1927 a series of poems in Now We are Six.
While Christopher Robin is older than Sharing-Books, we are delighted to be one year old. This year has introduced a host of authors and illustrators from around the globe to you, the reader. In fact, we have received such attention that Sharing-Books is likely the largest publisher of new children's books in Canada.


There has been plenty to celebrate and we did so, bringing together those in the local area. Sharon Davis of Room to Read, Vancouver Chapter joined us and Pierre Lapointe, CEO turned our minds to the coming year. Of course, as any child will tell you, the most important part of the evening was the cake! Lit with sparklers and iced with lots of gooey icing, it was a grand way to celebrate our first year live, giving us plenty of sugar to fuel our plans for the future. So do join us in singing Happy Birthday and stay tuned for upcoming features to enhance your child's reading experience!

Labels: children's ebooks, e-books, e-readers, ebooks, Sharing-Books

BRIGITTE ROZARIO of the Star Online wrote a good review of Sharing-Books.com and we are thankful for the publicity. Click here to read the full article.