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Saturday, 10 March 2012

Guest Post: U-Tales and The Friendship Alphabet


At the end of last year, KBR welcomed Nils von Heijne from uTales.com with a post on picture books for a better world. Nils has returned with news of this unique children's ebook project. Welcome, Nils!

The Friendship Alphabet is one of our most exciting projects yet. More than 30 authors and illustrators from fifteen different countries have created a digital picture book together. The ebook can be read online at uTales.com and uTales apps for iPad and iPhone, and all earnings from it will go to uTales' charity partner Pencils of Promise to help them build new preschools in developing countries, such as Laos and Guatemala. 

The Friendship Alphabet teaches children the alphabet through the concept of friendship, while showcasing different styles of illustration and storytelling from around the world. The idea for the book came from Anders Lindholm, illustrator and member of the uTales community, and he then engaged other uTalers from USA, Canada, The UK, Israel, South Africa, Greece, France and Italy etc. The simple idea was to teach children about friendship by having the book be created based on the artistic friendship among uTalers.

The concept of having so many different creatives come together to create one fun and educational ebook for charity is fairly unique, and uTales founder Nils von Heijne says he hopes to see more projects like this in the digital book space soon.
You can purchase the ebook for $1.99 or start a full uTales subscription for $9.99/month (which will give you access to hundreds of educational ebooks for kids, while supporting charity). You can also claim a free uTales trial at uTales.com.