Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Childrens' Micro-Publishing

My oldest daughter is going to start kindergarten on Monday!  Tonight we had New Parent Orientation, at least half of which was PTA* recruitment, but this turned out to be very interesting.

One of the PTA projects at this elementary school is actually a tiny publishing company!  Students are encouraged to write and illustrate a story, and Wildcat Publishing produces it in hardcover.  Not one book for the whole school, mind you - each child gets her own book.  In fact, the first one is free for each child, but she can pay for additional books.

The PTA mom in charge was looking for volunteers to do everything but the binding: scan, type, edit, layout and design.  She told me it takes an average volunteer about two weeks to produce one book.  There are over 900 students at this school.  I don't know how they make that math work, but I sincerely hope these kids appreciate it!


*In case they don't have PTA wherever you live, it is short for Parent-Teacher Association. Volunteer Parent Auxiliary might be more apt though; it is a corps of parents who volunteer time to assist with school operations and support school initiatives.  Since the work is typically done during the school day and on school grounds, most of the active participants are stay-at-home moms.

2 comments:

  1. They publish it in hardcover? Amazing. How nice for the children though.

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