Submission Guidelines:

• Fill in the balloon with your own Valentine message! The Valentine may be for anyone you love: the love of your life, your parent or child, a favorite teacher, friend or co-worker; you name it (or him or her!,) but it can't be longer than 20 words. Your name and message will be featured on the card and EVERY entry will be entered into our give away and displayed on our facebook page, in the HEARTS ALBUM. The Valentine with the most "likes" will win the Grand Prize! 
• Send the text for your TOON Valentine in the submission form below or to mail  @toon-books.com with the subject "Hearts VDay." In case you win a giveaway item, be sure to include your name and  U.S. shipping address and, if you want the prize sent to someone, your designated recipient name, email and U.S. mailing address (sorry no international shipping).
• All submissions are due by 5:00 EST on February 13, 2014.

Prizes and Selection Process:

• Our 5 office favorites will receive a FREE copy of Thereza Rowe's "brilliantly illustrated" new book, Hearts!  
• Grand Prize Facebook Winner - All entries will be posted to our Facebook Valentines Album.  The Valentine with the most "likes" will win the Hardcover Collection of TOON American Library Association ALSC Selections, a $103.60 retail value!
• All winners will be announced on February 14, 2014!

  

I so share Helena's view and it reminds me of something I said in a recent interview on Design Mom that I'd like to share again with you here. One of the artists I work with, Frank Cammuso, pointed out that he can’t pull out an iPad at bedtime with his three-year old. An iPad is a window on an endless stream of excitement; it’s not a place to focus and prepare for sleep and dreams. But a book is! A book can be read every night and it will always be the same and different. It will be what your Dad read when he was a kid, and what you’ll read to your children. It has some elements that don’t change yet it’s a new adventure every time you reread it, because reading is truly interactive and the reader is half the story. All day long, I spend my days on a computer, making and manipulating images, reading and writing emails, finding information. A computer is a good tool, a means to an end, but spending so much time online makes me very aware of how special and valuable any ‘old media’ is, anything that is printed, frozen, preserved in one form, fossilized. It’s there to be interpreted. Every time you spend time with it, it remains the same yet it becomes something more. Whenever I hear from people who say that Silly Lilly, Benjamin Bear, A Trip to The Bottom of the World, or any of the TOON Books has become their child’s favorite book, read night after night, I feel hopeful for the future. 

The TOON Team couldn't agree more!  Below some more of our favorite excerpts.  What's yours!?  See below for TOON's Comment Contest.  Click here to read the complete lecture.

ON SUPPORTING LIBRARIES...

"But libraries are about freedom. Freedom to read, freedom of ideas, freedom of communication. They are about education (which is not a process that finishes the day we leave school or university), about entertainment, about making safe spaces, and about access to information."

"Libraries really are the gates to the future. So it is unfortunate that, round the world, we observe local authorities seizing the opportunity to close libraries as an easy way to save money, without realising that they are stealing from the future to pay for today. They are closing the gates that should be open."

"We have an obligation to support libraries. To use libraries, to encourage others to use libraries, to protest the closure of libraries. If you do not value libraries then you do not value information or culture or wisdom. You are silencing the voices of the past and you are damaging the future."

"We all - adults and children, writers and readers - have an obligation to daydream. We have an obligation to imagine. It is easy to pretend that nobody can change anything, that we are in a world in which society is huge and the individual is less than nothing: an atom in a wall, a grain of rice in a rice field. But the truth is, individuals change their world over and over, individuals make the future, and they do it by imagining that things can be different."

All this week, Barnes & Noble stores nationwide are recognizing the value of educators with extra discounts, savings, and events. TOON Books is participating in B&N's Educator Appreciation Days, so this is a great opportunity to use your Educator discount to get new TOON Books for the classroom. Click here to find a participating store near you. 

In addition to featuring our paperbacks, Barnes & Noble is distributing our new COMMON CORE POSTERS, which have been a hit with teachers and students alike. The poster shows how TOON Books can be used to teach the Common Core standards and gives examples of some of the guided activities available on our website. We're giving these posters away for FREE, so just send us a request!

Not only are comics good for young readers, but kids really love them!  At TOON Books, we know that our books are a great way to teach reluctant readers to love reading, but there is nothing quite like seeing the joy on their faces as they delve into a good book.

One of our blogger fans, Tanya Turek of booksforyourkids.com, sponsored a book giveaway for TOON, in which participating readers submitted photos of their kids with TOON Books.  We owe her a debt of gratitude for collecting all of these fantastic photos for us, and thanks to her readers as well for being such enthusiastic fans!

Our own giveaway is still going through the end of the month too.  Be sure to pop in a bookstore and get a picture of their TOON Books to get one of our new titles for free.

Thanks again to all of our supporters for sending us pictures this month.  We cannot wait to hear what you have to say about your new TOON books!

TOON Books is about to have its BIGGEST GIVEAWAY EVER!

We are very excited for the launch of our affordable new line of $4.99 paperback TOON Books, and we want to celebrate!  

Starting February 12, displays of our new TOON paperbacks will be in all Barnes and Noble stores and a select group of independent bookstores (see bottom of the post for a list). Send us a picture of those displays and we will send you a new TOON paperback, absolutely free. 

If your local bookstore does not have one of displays, you are still in luck.  Just send us a picture of TOON Books in ANY store, and we will still give you a paperback TOON.

Our first six paperbacks feature a whole slew of new features, including:

• A redesigned cover and back cover with extra guidance on our levels
• TOON into Reading guides in the back of each book to help kids get the most out of our books
• The affordable price of $4.99

There are three Level 1 TOON readers, and three Level 2 TOON readers: Claude Ponti's Chick & Chickie Play All Day, Agnes Rosenstiehl's Silly Lilly and The Four Seasons, Jeff Smith's Little Mouse Gets Ready, Philippe Coudray's Benjamin Bear in Fuzzy Thinking and Geoffrey Hayes' Benny and Penny in Just Pretend and Benny and Penny in The Toy Breaker.

And, each of our new books are supplemented by free lesson plans and common core guides on our website.

TOON Books are the go-to for early readers, great for reluctant readers, and loved by boys and girls alike.  

Pullitzer Prize-winning author Art Spiegelman describes comics as a "gateway drug to literacy!" and studies show it too: comics promote literacy in kids! TOON Books are an invaluable asset for beginning readers who are still struggling with English and reluctant readers too.

Tell your friends so everyone can take advantage.  We can't wait to see your pictures.

Independent Bookstores with our display:

Tattered Cover in Denver, Colorado
Children's Book World in Haverford, Pennsylvania
Gibson's Book Store in Concord, New Hampshire
WORD in Brooklyn, New York
Wellesley Books in Wellesley, Massachusetts
Linden Tree in Los Altos, California
Hicklebee's in San Jose, California
McNally Jackson Booksellers in New York, New York
Barstons Child's Play in Washington, D.C. 
Newtonville Books in Newton, Massachusetts
Longfellow Books in Portland, Maine
Greenlight Bookstore in Brooklyn, New York
Mapletree Books in Warrensburg, New York
The Toadstool Bookshop in Peterborough, New Hampshire
Water Street Bookstore in Exeter, New Hampshire

The suspense is over! We’ve entered the names of everyone who’s sent us the name of the TOON book they’d like to read into a random generator to come up with our three winners: 

Vicki Palmquist
Jorden Cunningham 
Rebecca Zarazan

Congratulations! Please email us at [email protected] so that we can get your shipping information and send you your books!

For everyone else who entered, thank you again for your continued support. We couldn’t keep doing what we do without you. If you want to get the early scoop on more giveaways like this one, be sure to subscribe to our newsletter at toon-books.com/newsletter.html. There might just be something special coming up very soon... 

We’ve also tallied up the books (links below) that were most frequently requested by our fans, along with some of our favorite comments. 

A Trip to the Bottom of the World by Frank Viva: 
Diandra: "My five year old and I really want to read A Trip to the Bottom of the World with Mouse! Looks like a great adventure!"

The Shark King by R. Kikuo Johnson

The Secret of the Stone Frog by David Nytra:
Vicki: "I booktalk your books every chance I get ... I think they're TERRIFIC! I'd love to read The Secret of the Stone Frog."

Christina: "The Secret of the Stone Frog. The pen and ink work looks amazing  and inspiring!"

Zig and Wikki in The Cow by Nadja Spiegelman and Trade Loeffler:
Robin: "Looking forward to reading Zig and Wikki in The Cow because it looks like fun!"

Noel: "Thanks for your awesome books! My son actually reads them! We would love to read Zig and Wikki in The Cow."

Zig and Wikki in Something Ate My Homework by Nadja Spiegelman and Trade Loeffler: 
Carol: "Zig and Wikki in Something Ate My Homework -- my 6-year-old son always wants to borrow it from the library!"

Jack and the Box by Art Spiegelman

Silly Lilly in What Will I Be Today? by Agnès Rosenstiehl

Luke on the Loose by Harry Bliss


Benny and Penny in the Toybreaker! by Geoffrey Hayes


Chick and Chickie Play All Day by Claude Ponti


Stinky by Eleanor Davis


Benjamin Bear in Fuzzy Thinking by Philippe Coudray


Little Mouse Gets Ready by Jeff Smith


Barry’s Best Buddy by Renee French  This title will soon be released... So stay tuned for more great TOON Books, and more giveaways!

Hello TOON friends! In case you'd forgotten, today is the LAST DAY for our social media giveaway. To celebrate our 1,000 followers on Twitter and our 1,500 fans on Facebook, we're giving one free TOON book to three fans. 

Tweet @toonbooks or comment on our Facebook page naming the TOON title you'd most like to read next. Today, at 5 pm, we'll pick three random winners to get their requested TOON Books for FREE!

Thanks again to our wonderful fans and readers. 

by Julia Phillips

This month, we hit 1500 fans on Facebook and 1000 followers on Twitter! To celebrate our success, we're devoting this week on our social pages to a limited-time giveaway. Tweet @toonbooks or comment on our Facebook page naming the TOON title you'd most like to read next. On Friday, Feb. 1 we'll pick three random winners to get their requested TOON Books for FREE!