Kid_eLit +

I just heard about In2Books from Dr. Stein Brunvard's site.  From ePal's In2Books site, they describe In2Books as a program that  "promotes literacy across the curriculum by matching students with adult pen pals who read the same books and correspond online about the important issues in the books. The books are carefully selected to align with literacy, social studies and science standards."

Teachers and schools can apply to be part of the program, and Title I schools can participate for free.  Yep, that's right!  For free!!  Other schools and teachers can participate and use some of the resources for free but they must also provide some resources, too, such as the books and the pen pals.

Now, we're talking about some content area reading with focus on social studies and science but with fiction, too.  So, there definitely is a variety across the narrative, fiction and expository texts.  Woohoo!  Dr. Brunvard says, he can "can imagine senior citizens, retired educators, preservice teachers and even responsible high school students participating as pen pals. What a great way to tap into a population of volunteers that might not be able to come into the classroom to help out but could be very helpful as 'virtual volunteers' ."

If you're using it or going to find out about using it, let me know.

After reading about BigUniverse.com in one of my posts, Jennifer Nelson commented in about a similar site she'd found called LookyBook <http://www.lookybook.com/>.  She says, this interactive site allows children and parents to read entire picture books.  The books can be reviewed, rated, shared, put on a bookshelf and purchased.  The best part about LookyBook is the fact that it is free!

I just discovered BigUniverse.com today, and I had to share.  This is a great site — a great companion to ICDL.  BigUniverse is dedicated to children's picture books, and the quality is very high. 

BigUniverse let's you do a number of cool things.  First off, you can create your picture book.  Next, you can read popular press picture books from well know authors.  (In their media press releases, BigUniverse reports that this feature has increased book sales.)  You can, of course, purchase books right from the site.  Next, you can connect with children's book authors and experts who blog through the site.  Finally, you can create your own bookshelf of books from BigUniverse.  This would be a great way to keep up with the books you really like or want to use in your classroom.

Zoomii.  I just heard about it today.  If you haven't heard about it I encourage you to take a look.  It sort of makes it fun to browse online like you were really walking through a bookstore.  I've added the link to the children's section above, but you can select from the category listing on the top left for any section you wish.  Now only if they could add the aroma of brewing coffee (that I don't drink) and the soft sounds of people talking, we might be getting close to a virtual experience.

The International Children's Digital Library <http://www.childrenslibrary.org/> is an online site with a collection of children's books from around the world.  ICDL's researchers have contacted the original authors for the works to include on the site's database.  The site's FAQ describes the background as:

The International Children's Digital Library (ICDL) is a research project funded primarily by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS), and Microsoft Research to create a digital library of outstanding children's books from all over the world. The project was introduced at an international celebration at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. in November 2002. The collection's focus is on identifying materials that help children to understand the world around them and the global society in which they live. The materials in the collection, all presented in the original languages in which they were published, reflect similarities and differences in cultures, societies, interests, and lifestyles of peoples around the world. At the end of the initial research period, it is anticipated that the ICDL collection will include approximately 10,000 materials in at least 100 languages.

Since these are original scans from copyrighted works, you really shouldn't print these out, but they would be great to project in a classroom with an LCD project, interactive whiteboard or big screen TV.