| Barnes and Noble has unveiled a new pilot program with a Spanish-language Storytime at select stores across the USA. Barnes & Noble kicks off the inaugural Storytime in May with a reading of ¡Te lo regalo! by Gabriela Keselman and other stories for toddlers. Customers can listen to stories read in Spanish and enjoy word practice and fun activities. "More schools are embracing dual immersion language programs, helping children become fluent speakers in two languages by the time they graduate high school," said Sarah DiFrancesco, Vice President of Business Development for Barnes & Noble. "We're hearing from parents that they want to immerse their children in language learning at a young age, when language acquisition is easy and fun. We believe Spanish-language Storytimes fill a growing demand for this type of early childhood foreign language programming." "We are thrilled to have the opportunity to share our favorite Spanish-language books with customers attending our new monthly Spanish-language Storytimes," said Denise Duarte, Spanish-Language Children's Buyer for Barnes & Noble. "The May selection, ¡Te lo regalo!, was just nominated for a Latino Book Award in the category of 'Most Inspirational Children's Picture Book – Spanish.' It's an important story about learning to share with adorable animal illustrations the children will love." Select Barnes and Noble Bookstores Offering Spanish Storytime is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Monday, April 21, 2014
Select Barnes and Noble Bookstores Offering Spanish Storytime
New Onyx Zeus is a 9.7 e Ink Open Android e-Reader
| One of the downfalls of a dedicated e-reader is that you are limited in dealing with the company who sold it. When you buy a Kobo, Nook, Sony or Kindle you are locked into that ecosystem. This presents challenges when Sony closes their North American bookstore and forces customers to switch to another retailer. Tablets overall are a bit more agnostic, because readers can choose what app they want to download and can deal with more than one company. The new Onyx Zeus e-Reader is poised to bridge the two worlds and offer a new experience. The Onyx Zeus is a new 9.7 touchscreen e Ink Pearl Reader with a resolution of 1200 x 825. It lacks the frontlite of the competition, which will warrant customers investing in a reading light. Underneath the hood of the Boox M96M Zeus is a 1GHz Freescale i.MX6 Solo Lite processor and 512 MB of RAM. You can store your data efficiently with the 4 GB internal storage and boost it up via the MicroSD. The most compelling aspect of the Zeus is the fact it is running a pure version of Android with version 4.04. This means you can easily load in your own apps and not do business exclusively with a specific company. It does not have access to the Google Play market obviously, but you can load in the Good e-Reader App Store and install things like Amazon Kindle, Kobo, Nook, Sony or a number of indie apps. Speaking of indie, the e-reader comes bundled with a bunch of notable ones such as FBReader, Cool-ER and more. This e-reader is fairly expensive at $400 and is available exclusively in Russia. You can order it directly from Onyx in a few weeks for 14990.00 p. We will try and get a copy of this and do a hands on review shortly. New Onyx Zeus is a 9.7 e Ink Open Android e-Reader is a post from: Good e-Reader |
World Book Night Unveils eBook Giveaway for 2014
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"As a company, we are thrilled to bring our technology and resources to support World Book Night,” said Livrada’s CEO and co-founder Leonard Chen. “We strive to meld our passion for technology and books, and hope this ebook brings joy to many people this WBN 2014.” WBN’s executive director Carl Lennertz added, “We've discussed a digital component for WBN since year one, but it didn't come together until the great people at Livrada stepped forward, and until two authors who were givers agreed to contribute pieces. Then we sought and received the fun bookseller and library contributions to the ebook. This is a supplement to our primary mission of printed books, not a change in direction. It's short and fun original material, and we wanted the givers to have this to offer anyone they meet who might not read often on their smart phones or tablets. Our main mission is still to find a half million people without means or access to printed books, but this digital extra is a nice plus. We also feel it's a great thank you to the 25,000 volunteer givers to enjoy as well. And now, we have the giver contest to be in next year's ebook!" The contest, which lets this year’s givers submit essays on their giving experience this year, will run through May 31st for feature in next year’s ebook. The winner of the essay contest will receive two roundtrip airfares in the US. The library winner will receive two air tickets to the ALA conference, while the bookseller winner will receive two airline tickets to BookExpo 2015. Full contest details can be found HERE.
World Book Night Unveils eBook Giveaway for 2014 is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Podcast: Barnes and Noble Yuzu, Amazon, GoodReads and More
| Welcome back to the most captivating edition of the Good e-Reader Radio Show! Today Michael Kozlowski and Jeremy Greenfield of DBW discuss all of the major digital publishing events of the last week. Today on the show Michael and Jeremy discuss Barnes and Nobles latest eTextbook platform called Yuzu. The Founder of B&N has also been selling a ton of stock this year, what are the reasons? They also talk about the newfound synergy between Amazon and Goodreads, with the ability to add paid Kindle books to your shelf. A great show as always, with a special feature on people editing open source and royalty free eBooks to get a quick sale. Podcast: Barnes and Noble Yuzu, Amazon, GoodReads and More is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Weekly eHighlights: Special Streaming Video edition
| If your library has not yet purchased streaming video, all you have to do is place an order! Once you submit your order, your Account Specialist will be in touch about updating your site to support streaming video for your users. Streaming video titles are available under the one copy/one user model. Users can select their lending period for three, five or seven days. OverDrive Streaming Video is a convenient and exciting way to instantly watch videos anytime, anywhere, on any computer, tablet or mobile device with an internet connection (and coming soon: the OverDrive Roku® channel)! Also, check out the growing list of streaming videos that are available for simultaneous access in Marketplace. Here is a list of some of the most popular titles in our catalog of over 6,000 titles. If you purchased all 42 of the titles in this list, your cost would be $922.47. Click here for a Marketplace cart containing these titles
Selected Popular Streaming Video Titles
10 Years – Channing Tatum, Chris Pratt, Rosario Dawson 14 Women – Hillary Rodham Clinton, Annette Bening Americano – Salma Hayek, Geraldine Chapman At War with the Army – Jerry Lewis, Dean Martin Becket – Peter O'Toole, Richard Burton, John Gielgud The Best and the Brightest – Neil Patrick Harris, Bonnie Sommerville, Amy Sedaris Blue Valentine – Ryan Gosling, Michelle Williams BMX Bandits – Nicole Kidman Django Unchained – Quentin Tarantino, Jamie Foxx, Leonardo DiCaprio The Evil Dead – Sam Raimi, Bruce Campbell, Ellen Sandweiss Give Me the Banjo – Steve Martin I Don't Know How She Does It – Sarah Jessica Parker, Christina Hendricks, Pierce Brosnan, Greg Kinnear The Iron Lady – Meryl Streep The Weinstein Company (via the Starz Digital Media catalog) Jillian Michaels: One Week Shred Killing Them Softly – Brad Pitt, Ray Liotta, James Gandolfini The King's Speech – Colin Firth The Last Time I Saw Paris – Elizabeth Taylor, Van Johnson, Donna Reed, Walter Pidgeon The Master – Philip Seymour Hoffman, Joaquin Phoenix, Amy Adams The Men Who Stare At Goats – George Clooney, Ewan McGregor, Jeff Bridges, Kevin Spacey Mr. Wuffles! – David Wiesner My Week with Marilyn – Michelle Williams, Kenneth Branagh Our Idiot Brother – Paul Rudd, Elizabeth Banks, Zooey Deschanel Paper Man – Jeff Daniels, Ryan Reynolds, Emma Stone, and Lisa Kudrow Personal Effects – Ashton Kutcher, Kathy Bates, Michelle Pfeiffer Race with Destiny: The James Dean Story – Casper Van Dien Royal Wedding – Fred Astaire, Jane Powell Sarah's Key – Kristin Scott Thomas Scream 4 – Wes Craven, Neve Campbell, Courtney Cox, David Arquette Seal Team Six: The Raid on Osama bin Laden – Cam Gigandet, Anson Mount Silent Wings: The American Glider Pilots of WW II – Walter Cronkite, Andy Rooney, Hal Holbrook The Silver Linings Playbook – Jennifer Lawrence, Bradley Cooper, Robert De Niro, Jacki Weaver Smother – Diane Keaton, Liv Tyler The Snows of Kilimanjaro – Gregory Peck, Susan Hayward South of the Border – Oliver Stone, Hugo Chavez Spy Kids: All the Time in the World – Jessica Alba, Joel McHale Sunshine Cleaning – Amy Adams, Emily Blunt, Alan Arkin Super High Me – Doug Benson The Terror – Jack Nicholson, Boris Karloff Traitor – Don Cheadle Trashed – Jeremy Irons Where the Wild Things Are – Maurice Sendak, Peter Schickele World War I: American Legacy – Narrated by David Carradine
Did you miss our last eHighlights? Click below! Click here for all the back issues of eHighlights.
Cindy Orr is a Collection Development Analyst at OverDrive.  |
Happy Earth Day!
| Happy Earth Day! April 22, 2014 marks the 44th Earth Day celebration. Over 192 countries participate with educational and outreach activities. Because education is a critical part of Earth Day, we've put together some examples of fantastic nonfiction titles for K-12. These eBooks encourage students to discover more about the environment, as well as offer ideas on how to help. K-6: 
Young Adult: 
Click here to access a saved search with these titles, as well as many more science and nature eBooks available for your school or library to purchase in the OverDrive Marketplace. **Some titles may have limited regional or platform availability. Laura Ruttig is an Account Executive at OverDrive.  |
More smart school updates: The email share feature
| One of the best moments in my teaching career was when an eighth grade girl said to me "Hey Mrs. L, I really liked that book you recommended." This short anecdote in itself is not compelling, but if you knew that this student was obsessed with drawing Manga characters, dreamed of visiting Japan and rarely did the assigned work in my class then you might look at the story a bit differently. Are you wondering about this enticing book? Yes, the story took place in Japan and featured artistic and somewhat rebellious tweens similar in age to my student. It is the hope of every educator that he or she can make these memorable and precious connections with all students. The art of recommendation is a powerful motivator and a way to appreciate a student's individuality in the classroom. The email share feature, found on a title's details page, can be used to recommend titles of interest to students, teachers, and staff at your school. For elementary students, who don't yet have an email, the title link can be copied and placed in a public space such as the teacher's website or school library page. Don't overlook the Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest share options too. The email share feature joins other recent updates, such as the improved wish list.  Renee Lienhard is a Collection Development Analyst at OverDrive.  |
eBook Review: Haunted Empire by Yukari Iwatani Kane
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I expected a lot from Haunted Empire, and I did get a lot of information. It just wasn’t the stuff I thought I would read about. Where was the controversy? Where was the speculation about Apple’s downfall? Basically, where was the information that CEO Tim Cook took issue with? There was a lot of background information, and I will say that the beginning of the book contained an even closer look at Steve Jobs. It’s funny to read a book that contains information on how Jobs fought with the guy writing his book! There was a lot of really in-depth and thrilling–both heartwarming and negative–information on who Jobs was, told only through the most hidden conversations that made me ask several times, “How did the author find this out?” That’s not to question Kane’s veracity, but to really highlight that she included conversations no one else would have known about. But while the content within the book gave detailed information about Apple’s woes since the untimely passing of Jobs–I’m not above admitting that I cried several times during Kane’s depiction of the CEO’s last few months and final death–there was nothing of note about where the company is headed with Cook at the helm, at least not in terms of the uproar that followed the book’s publication. Yes, there is certainly mention that Apple hasn’t released anything profound since losing its original dreamer, but it’s also understandable. Kane even paints a picture of a company that is still reinventing itself as a new company, having gone through downturns in the past with various underwhelming CEOs. At the same time, Kane herself gives so much insight into not only the legal woes that have plagued Apple lately (and kept the company fairly busy with its leadership and its finances tied up in courtroom drama), but also unintentionally details the cyclical nature of Apple’s innovations. It’s hardly newsworthy that the company that brought us the iPhone, iPod, iPad, and resulting app and music stores in the space of such a short time frame would rest on its laurels for a moment before attempting to launch anything quite as world changing again. Haunted Empire was insightful and interesting, but hardly earned its reputation as the tell-all, “bearer of bad tidings” book that the hype told us to expect.
eBook Review: Haunted Empire by Yukari Iwatani Kane is a post from: Good e-Reader |
