10 Books Every Child Should Own

• A Wrinkle in Time. SPECIAL 50TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION. (Macmillan)
• Click, Clack, Moo: Cows That Type (Simon & Schuster)
• Diary of a Wimpy Kid (Abrams)
• Eating the Alphabet (Houghton Mifflin)
• Green Eggs and Ham (Random House)
• Guess How Much I Love You (Candlewick Press)
• Martin's Big Words (Disney Publishing Worldwide)
• The Snowy Day SPECIAL 50TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION. (Puffin)
• To Kill a Mockingbird. SPECIAL 50TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION. (Hachette)

• Where the Wild Things Are. (HarperCollins)
•  

31 Oct 2012 15:04 Africa/Lagos

Ten Books Every Child Should Own
Public Invited to Choose Which Iconic Children's Book Should Be Given to Kids in Need Through First Book

WASHINGTON, Oct. 31, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- First Book, a nonprofit that provides new, high-quality books to children from low-income families, is asking the public to choose which iconic children's title they will give away as their 100 millionth book in November.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20101214/DC17316LOGO-b)

"In some of the lowest-income neighborhoods in the country there is only one book available for every 300 children, unlike more affluent neighborhoods where every child has a dozen or more books of their own," said Kyle Zimmer, president and CEO of First Book. "This disparity is intolerable."

"We've chosen ten great books we think every child should own," Zimmer said. "Kids need books like these to turn them into strong readers and help them become success stories – in school and in life."

First Book works with a growing network of over 40,000 local schools and community programs across the United States and Canada, as well as the publishing industry, to provide free and low-cost books to children in need – almost 100 million brand-new books since its founding in 1992.

To choose the 100 millionth book, they've asked supporters and members of the public to vote online.

Voters can choose their favorite from ten well-known and beloved children's books.

The top ten books represent some of the all-time best-selling titles available on the First Book Marketplace, a website available exclusively to educators and program leaders that work with kids in need.

A Wrinkle in Time (Macmillan)
Click, Clack, Moo: Cows That Type (Simon & Schuster)
Diary of a Wimpy Kid (Abrams)
Eating the Alphabet (Houghton Mifflin)
Green Eggs and Ham (Random House)
Guess How Much I Love You (Candlewick Press)
Martin's Big Words (Disney Publishing Worldwide)
The Snowy Day (Puffin)
To Kill a Mockingbird (Hachette)
Where the Wild Things Are (HarperCollins)

Voting begins today, Oct. 29, and continues through Nov. 9. To vote, visit firstbook.org/vote.

The winning title will be announced on Nov. 15 at Martha's Table in Washington, D.C, a local nonprofit dedicated to meeting the needs of homeless and low-income children. It was at Martha's Table that First Book was born; the idea came to Zimmer when she and some colleagues were volunteering there 20 years ago and realized that the children they were working with had no books of their own at home. Children at the program will receive their very own copies of the winning title.

In addition, copies of all ten books will be available as a special anniversary collection to all of the 40,000 schools and programs that make up the First Book network.

Anyone who works with kids in need is eligible to get books from First Book. In addition to the First Book Marketplace, where over 3,000 titles are available at low cost, First Book also regularly distributes large quantities of brand-new books donated by publishers, free of charge.

To sign up, visit First Book on the web.

About First Book
First Book has distributed almost 100 million books and educational resources to programs and schools serving children from low-income families throughout the United States and Canada. By making new, high-quality books available on an ongoing basis, First Book is transforming the lives of children in need and elevating the quality of education. For more information, please visit us online or follow our latest news on Facebook and Twitter.

CONTACT: Brian Minter
bminter@firstbook.org
202-639-0115

SOURCE First Book

Web Site: http://www.firstbook.org

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Hilary Mantel wins 2012 Man Booker Prize

Hilary Mantel wins 2012 Man Booker Prize

16 October 2012

The whittling has finished. The judges of this year's Man Booker Prize started with a daunting 145 novels and have winnowed, sifted, culled, and in some cases hurled, until there was only one left: Hilary Mantel's Bring up the Bodies.

Hers is a story unique in Man Booker history. She becomes only the third author, after Peter Carey and J.M. Coetzee, to win the prize twice, which puts her in the empyrean. But she is also the first to win with a sequel (Wolf Hall won in 2009) and the first to win with such a brief interlude between books. Her resuscitation of Thomas Cromwell – and with him the historical novel – is one of the great achievements of modern literature. There is the last volume of her trilogy still to come so her Man Booker tale may yet have a further chapter.

The writing will have to wait a bit though. She may have won before but the torrent of media interest will still knock her back as if she's been hit by a wave. In 2009 she confessed to feeling as though she were “flying through the air”, well, she's soaring again. When she lands she won't have time to think and she will talk into microphones until her throat is sore. It comes with the territory: everyone wants a bit of the Man Booker winner.

It has been a long and uniquely intense journey not just for her but for everyone associated with the prize. For the judges it has meant nine months of work, worry and pleasure. Their choices have been scrutinised and criticised and their thoughts and penchants imagined. They will have read the shortlisted books at least three times. They will await the public's verdict on their choice with sang froid mixed with curiosity. They needn't be worried, Bring Up the Bodies has had near universal praise from critics and reading public alike.

The shortlisted authors meanwhile have felt the hot brightness of the media spotlight on them since July when the long-list was first announced. They can breathe out now. For Hilary Mantel all those middle-of-the-night moments when she had to tell herself not to think of what it would be like to win again, not to jinx herself, can stop.

Indeed, spare a thought for the shortlisted authors; they will have had a day unlike any other they have known. How do you take your mind off the fact that in a matter of hours you might be the winner of arguably the world's most high-profile literary prize? Of course it is an honour and validation to be shortlisted but they will have known that at 11.30 this morning the judges closed the door of a room somewhere in London – possibly near to where they themselves were standing/shopping/chomping their nails – and settled down to decide their future. They will have wondered what that group literary holy men and women, like the conclave of cardinals in the Sistine Chapel choosing a new Pope, were talking about and wondered whether the puff of white smoke that finally emerged was for them. They may be writers but they're only human.

The nerves will have continued all through the prize dinner, even a phalanx of loved ones, publisher and agent can't keep them away. They chatted amicably, a drink – but perhaps just the one – to steady the beating heart. I doubt they tasted their food. Who would have wanted to be them as Sir Peter Stothard took to the rostrum and opened his mouth to enunciate the first syllable of the winner's name? She may qualify as an old hand but Hilary Mantel confessed that her nerves this time round were infinitely worse than in 2009.

This is not the end of the process, however. For Hilary Mantel it is the moment of coronation before she confronts the wider horizons that have suddenly opened up before her. For the other shortlisted authors who came so agonisingly close they have the knowledge that every publisher in the land will bite their hand off for the chance to publish their next book and that, whatever they write, they will have a wide and eager audience. Their names are now known to readers who may have had no idea of them only a few months ago.

Perhaps the real object of envy is not the winner – she thoroughly deserves her triumph – but the readers who have yet to open Bring Up the Bodies. They have just won a prize too.

SOURCE: THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE.

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Chinese Author of Big Breasts and Wide Hips Wins 2012 Nobel Prize in Literature

Mo Yan.

Xinhua‎ reports the cheering news of Chinese writer Mo Yan and famous author of Big Breasts and Wide Hips winning the 2012 Nobel Prize in Literature, announced by Peter Englund, Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy in Stockholm on Thursday.

Mo Yan's real name is Guan Moye and his famous pen name "Mo Yan" (Chinese: 莫言) means "don't speak" in Chinese. Donald Morrison of TIME news magazine called Yan "one of the most famous and widely pirated of all Chinese writers".

A writer should express criticism and indignation at the dark side of society and the ugliness of human nature, but we should not use one uniform expression. Some may want to shout on the street, but we should tolerate those who hide in their rooms and use literature to voice their opinions.
~ Mo Yan, Frankfurt Book Fair, 2009. 

About Big Breasts and Wide Hips.

In his latest novel, Mo Yan—arguably China’s most important contemporary literary voice—recreates the historical sweep and earthy exuberance of his much acclaimed novel Red Sorghum. In a country where patriarchal favoritism and the primacy of sons survived multiple revolutions and an ideological earthquake, this epic novel is first and foremost about women, with the female body serving as the book’s central metaphor. The protagonist, Mother, is born in 1900 and married at seventeen into the Shangguan family. She has nine children, only one of whom is a boy—the narrator of the book. A spoiled and ineffectual child, he stands in stark contrast to his eight strong and forceful female siblings.

Mother, a survivor, is the quintessential strong woman who risks her life to save several of her children and grandchildren. The writing is picturesque, bawdy, shocking, and imaginative. The structure draws on the essentials of classical Chinese formalism and injects them with extraordinarily raw and surprising prose. Each of the seven chapters represents a different time period, from the end of the Qing dynasty up through the Japanese invasion in the 1930s, the civil war, the Cultural Revolution, and the post-Mao years. Now in a beautifully bound collectors edition, this stunning novel is Mo Yan’s searing vision of twentieth-century China.

Click here for the full report.

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