September 2008
Schools began reopening in August, and in the first week of September, we're already back in the villages with our book parties.
We've posted a wish list on www.Amazon.com; look us up as "Big Brother Mouse" if you'd like to send a book our way. These are books we need for research or office use, or inspire a young person here to try writing something similar. Used editions and paperbacks are fine.
August 2008
Thank you to the Global Fund for Children and the Bengier Foundation, whose grants this year will allow us to publish 6 more books. An anonymous grant from another foundation will sponsor 74 rural book parties in the 2008-09 school year.
July 2008
Last year we set up "mini-libraries" in over a hundred village schools. With schools closed for the summer, teachers in some villages, teachers have taken the books to their homes so kids can still have access to them. In other villages, there will be no book access during the summer.
So this month we're trying out a new idea: "Junior Librarians." We've found a group of young people in a four villages who are interested in reading more. They've selected one person as the "junior librarian" who will keep some books in their home. We plan to try this in eight villages, see how it works, and how it can be improved as a way to quickly and inexpensively increase access to books.
June 2008
It's school vacation time here, so we cannot do book parties in most villages. We've been using the time to produce more books. Four new books have gone to press in the past month, including Fun With Fruit, illustrated by our two youngest artists yet, ages 10 and 16. We also sent to press four "economy" books. These are reprints of previous books, in a smaller size, and at a much smaller price. There are no existing channels for widely distributing books in Laos. We're going to experiment and see if, with a low price, these can get into local markets through the distribution channels for things like soap and toothpaste.
May 2008
We met cyclists and the owner of Far and Away Cycling as they pedalled through town a few months ago. They loved what Big Brother Mouse is doing and took some books to villages. In May, they worked with the Canadian Embassy Officer's Club to organize a fundraising silent auction in Washington, DC, which raised enough to sponsor two books, and a book party in a very large village. Thank you! For cyclists out there, Laos has some beautiful (though not often flat) and little-trafficked roads. Whether with a group such as Far and Away, or independently, we hope you'll discover them for yourself soon.
March 2008
We now have an outlet for our books in Savannakhet, in southern Laos: The Lingocom Center, across from Lao Foreign Exchange Bank (Banque Commercial Exterior du Lao) on the main commercial street. We hope to have arrangements soon in one or two other cities.
A year ago, we ran about three book parties a month. During the first week of March, a team went to the Nambak district north of Luang Prabang and did 12 events in six days! Sone, Yuphin, Linda, Sengdao, and our newest staffer, Phetsamone, came back from this intensive schedule still full of energy. As donations come in, we'll need to grow, and this gave us some confidence and experience.
After a publishing hiatus late last year, while we moved offices and put new attention into fundraising, the presses are rolling again. Three books have been printed recently, six more are at press, five more are moving through the government approval process, and a half-dozen more are in the final stages of preparation. One new title that's already entertaining kids here is an adaptation of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
January 2008
Happy New Year! One mouse year must equal 10 human years, because a year and a half after opening our first shop, Big Brother Mouse is growing like a teenager. We've outgrown two shops, and this month we moved into our third location. (The Visit Us page tells how to find us.)
We've expanded our website, with some interesting biographies of the staff, and several FAQS pages. We hope you'll take a few minutes to browse. If you find any bad links or pages that don't seem to look right, please let us know so we can fix them for the next person.
December 2007
Publishers Weekly, the leading U.S. magazine for publishers, wrote about Big Brother Mouse.
November 2007
Books are our main focus, but we also want to be responsible citizens. Some of the most important elements of Lao culture are being eroded in Luang Prabang by thoughtless tourists who are oblivious to our customs. In cooperation with the Luang Prabang Provincial Tourism Department, we've prepared an illustrated brochure with suggestions for visitors, which is given out at the Luang Prabang airport. Here's what we'd like visitors to know about Lao culture and customs.
October 2007
Now you can get a full description, see the cover, and read two sample pages, from all of our published books and some that are forthcoming. A link for each title is on our books page.
If you were at Luang Prabang's Fire Boat festival on Oct. 27, you must have seen a large-eared mouse proudly riding in one boat.
We were proud too. Like many creative initiatives here, the boat and mouse were the work of Sonesulilat, who has written songs and devised games for our book parties, and is working on several books. And he won't celebrate his 18th birthday until 2008!
Three new book sponsors have recently come forward. Thank you to Viengchampa Tours, the first Lao-owned business to sponsor a book (Aesop's Fables);
Julie McIntyre for sponsoring Baby Care; and George Grubb (Ancient Egypt).
We have permission to publish a Lao translation of Dalton Trumbo's anti-war classic, Johnny Got His Gun.
Thank you to Christopher Trumbo for his fast and generous cooperation on this.
September-October 2007
The new school year began in September, and we arranged with the Education Department to hold more book parties at schools in rural villages. The first three just took place on Oct. 17-25, and we're training three new people on our staff, so we can do more.
August 2007
Tax laws and organizational structures are different in Laos than in many western countries. Big Brother Mouse is officially organized as a business, but while we hope to one day be a self-sustaining publishing company, for many years we will depend on donations to fund distribution of books to rural villages, and our educational activities. We have just received an official "tax exempt" status from the provincial tax department, for this educational work.
July 2007
In February we began trying to get permission to publish Lao editions of several important books. The first is now approved: Anne Frank's Diary of a Young Girl. Thank you to the Anne Frank Foundation of Switzerland, and Butterfly House in Thailand, for their generous cooperation.
June 2007
Our biggest book to date, a children's Picture Dictionary by 18-year-old Tha Thao, is printed. Tha Tao selected 550 words, drew a picture for each word, then learned the desktop publishing skills to lay out the pages. His current project, Do You Want to See?, was inspired by Bill Martin Jr. and Eric Carle's book Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? It involves cutting colored paper to make pictures of animals.
With the end of the school year, we'll stop book parties for three months. We are now looking for funding to increase this program in the next school year.
May 2007
We've made return visits to some of the villages where we did book parties, and left swap boxes as "mini-libraries". In each location, the books were still available – sometimes continuously, sometimes just at certain times each week, but often enough. Many of the children still carried their book with them, and could discuss the books they had read.
April 2007
Travel Indochina, an Australia-based tour agency, has agreed to sponsor our forthcoming Animals of Australia, which our superhuman volunteer, Jane Burren, will soon finish writing. This is our third sponsorship; thank you!
Vanhsai has been working with Ron Wheeler, a volunteer with woodworking experience, to open a small workshop where we can make toys, games, and puzzles. Thank you to Colin Cotterill for helping us make that connection.
March 2007
Our goal, one year ago as our first books rolled off press, was to produce 30 books in our first year. On March 28, we sent our 29th and 30th books to press.
Book number 29 was our Lao Animals Coloring Book, with short captions in Lao, English, and Hmong.
It's our first book to include the Hmong language, and our first book with a sponsor: thank you, Bob King!
The 30th book was a classic, The Story of Dr. Dolittle, delightfully illustrated by 15-year-old Chittakone.
February 2007
We have had several more book parties in the villages around Luang Prabang. Our staff is gaining valuable experience introducing our books into these communities, and creating a fun-filled afternoon for the kids. The energy level at these events is very high, and both our Lao staff and the village kids have a great time playing and interacting together.
"Stay Another Day," the booklet sponsored by the World Bank to highlight sustainable tourism in Laos, has brought many new visitors to our shop. Big Brother Mouse is prominently featured on the cover, and we're the first project listed after the Information Center. Check out the Stay Another Day website for more interesting projects in Laos.
Khamla and Sasha spoke at the "Creativity and Madness" conference of the American Institute of Medical Education in Bangkok. As the only speakers without a string of initials after our names, we were a bit unsure how we'd fit in. However, from the enthusiastic comments we received afterwards and the invitation to come back two days later for a discussion group, we must have piqued their interest.
January 2007
The year started with five more books coming off the press, bringing us to a total of 18. The new titles include
Dinosaurs! – our second non-fiction book for older readers.
Our office in Vientiane opened in late December, opposite Wat Mixay.
November 2006
We've already outgrown our first shop, so we've opened a second location in Luang Prabang. Here we invite visitors to help local young people practice English, or play with local
children. Families are especially welcome!
High season is arriving in Laos. Visitors are working with our local staff to write books, teach computer skills,
or take books into far-off villages.
October 2006
Seven more books just rolled off the press, bringing us to a total of 13, including our first book suitable for teenagers.
September 2006
We've opened a second shop, located in Luang Namtha in northern Laos.
August 2006
The World Bank will feature Big Brother Mouse in a booklet about sustainable tourism, suggesting activities that visitors can enjoy, while also helping to improve living conditions for people in Laos.
July 2006
Maurice Sendak has generously offered to donate the rights to Where the Wild Things Are, so that we can produce a Lao version. We are in the process of negotiating arrangements with his publisher. [A year later we are still waiting for his publisher, HarperCollins, to proceed.]
June 2006
Khamla has received his official business license as well as the publishing license needed to operate Big Brother Mouse. Now we can publish our books under our own name!
Sasha gives a writing workshop, sponsored by Room to Read, for young writers in Vientiane. We continue to work with Room to Read to get books into more villages in Laos.
We've opened our first shop and office in the center of Luang Prabang. Visitors to Laos can see what we're doing, and buy books to take to villages in Laos, or to take home as gifts.
May 2006
Update magazine in Vientiane has run a story about Big Brother Mouse.
April 2006
The Vientiane Times has run a story about Khamla, Thongkham, and Big Brother Mouse.
Our sixth book has been published, in cooperation with Action with Lao Children, an NGO that has been working for many years to establish libraries and distribute books all over Laos.
March 2006
Our first five books have been printed, all aimed at making it fun and easy for young children to read. Since we weren't yet a registered business at the time, we published these in cooperation with Dokked, a respected Vientiane publisher.
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