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CLEVELAND –   TeachingBooks.net  today announced a unique collaboration with  Pear Deck , providing expanded opportunities for student engagement and learning. In this new collaboration, Pear Deck takes book-specific supplemental materials from TeachingBooks and creates a custom, interactive lesson. When used with the  Sora student reading app , a complete interactive literacy experience is created that engages students of all ages and provides unique learning opportunities. All TeachingBooks templates, as well as Pear Deck’s other content, are available for free at  Pear Deck’s Content Orchard . “By partnering with TeachingBooks and Sora, we’re bringing free, ready-to-teach literacy lessons to teachers and learners, furthering Pear Deck’s mission to create powerful learning moments for every student, every day,” said Stacy Yung, a former teacher and Senior Instructional Designer at GoGuardian, parent company of Pear Deck. “Reading is a strong lever in building a community in the classroom. We’re confident that this partnership will increase access to engaging lessons that help students connect with books, gain new insights and improve understanding, ultimately building deeper love of reading.”
With Pear Deck, now part of leading digital learning company GoGuardian, educators can transform lessons into impactful formative assessments and active learning experiences that seamlessly integrate with learning management systems. Templates, quick-start activities and ready-to-teach lessons connect students across all grades and subjects. TeachingBooks offers high-quality instructional assets such as author interviews and cultural reflection prompts that help educators bring books to life. The Sora student reading app is the leading digital book platform for schools that helps students read or listen to school-selected ebooks and audiobooks, 24/7 on any device. Sora offers the largest collection of premium materials used for instruction, novel sets and choice reading, including the most in-demand and beloved books and authors such as  Diary of a Wimpy Kid  and  The Great Gatsby . All three platforms offer free access to a “starter set” or “introductory catalog” as well as paid content options. California educators already have premium access to TeachingBooks.net via the  State Library of California  and the California K-12 Online Content Project. This new collaboration creates a holistic reading journey beginning with the Sora student reading app. Sora provides schools free access to popular and educational ebooks, audiobooks and read-alongs from the Sora Starter collection as well as titles in each school’s individual collection. Within the Pear Deck platform, educators can then supplement these digital books with TeachingBooks’ videos, author interviews, games and interactive discussions. Pear Deck’s TeachingBooks templates include dynamic resources and instructional guidance, offer replicable, bite-sized interactive activities designed to connect students deeply with the book as well as gain new insights and understanding from the author before, during and after reading the title. Included in this new collection of Pear Deck Orchard templates is TeachingBooks’ exclusive “Cultural Representation Reflection” activity. Designed to encourage readers of all levels to pause and reflect on the cultural representation of characters, setting and events in the books they read, students interactively compare and contrast their own experiences with elements of a book or story. “We developed this lesson with the goal of helping students discover a broader understanding of an inclusive society when reading any book, and maybe see what they might not have noticed before,” said Nick Glass, Founder and Head of TeachingBooks. “These lessons are offered in three levels to encourage students of all ages and levels to dive in and consider the representation of culture within a favorite book.” Activities within the Pear Deck Orchard version include drawing, Venn diagrams and guided reflection. For more information about Pear Deck, visit  https://www.peardeck.com/ . For more information about TeachingBooks, visit  TeachingBooks.net/OverDrive . For more information about the Sora app for schools, visit  https://discoversora.com . About TeachingBooks
TeachingBooks is an engaging collection of resources that brings children’s and young adult’s books to life. With access to hundreds of thousands of materials including original author interviews, video book trailers, discussion questions, vocabulary lists, interactive games and more, 55,000 schools and libraries have received more than 70 million unique investigations since August 2020. Awarded the Best Digital App of 2020 by the American Association of School Librarians and the 2021 Common Sense Education Selection for Learning, TeachingBooks was founded in 2000 and is in Madison, Wisconsin USA. TeachingBooks was acquired by  OverDrive  in 2021.  www.TeachingBooks.net
About OverDrive Education and the Sora student reading app
OverDrive Education, a division of OverDrive, offers the largest catalog of ebooks, audiobooks, digital magazines and other content for over 59,000 K-12 schools and millions of students worldwide. The  Sora  student reading app, named one of TIME’s Best Inventions, provides every student with access to the right books and supports the need for required curriculum titles, class sets and pleasure reading. TeachingBooks.net  (acquired in 2021) complements Sora with one of the largest catalogs of supplemental resources that “bring books to life.” Founded in 1986, OverDrive – which also provides digital content to public, academic and corporate libraries – is based in Cleveland, Ohio USA. About GoGuardian
GoGuardian aims to help all learners feel ready and inspired to solve the world’s greatest challenges by combining the best in learning and science technology across every part of the learning journey. Our award-winning system of educational tools, which includes Giant Steps, Pear Deck, and GoGuardian Teacher for learning engagement; Edulastic for formative assessments; TutorMe for virtual on-demand tutoring; and GoGuardian Admin and Beacon to support student safety, is purpose-built for K-12 and trusted by school leaders to promote effective teaching and equitable engagement while empowering educators to help keep students safe. Learn more at goguardian.com. eSchool Media staff cover education technology in all its aspects–from legislation and litigation, to best practices, to lessons learned and new products. First published in March of 1998 as a monthly print and digital newspaper, eSchool Media provides the news and information necessary to help K-20 decision-makers successfully use technology and innovation to transform schools and colleges and achieve their educational goals. Latest posts by eSchool News Staff ( see all )

TeachingBooks, Sora and Pear Deck Announce Collaboration to Expand Student Engagement and Learning

Kids’ e book ‘Our Skin’ in NYC colleges blames racism on white individuals
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An “inflammatory” kids’s e book being distributed to New York City colleges teaches youngsters as younger as 2 that the idea of race was created by white individuals who claimed they had been “better, smarter, prettier, and that they deserve more than everybody else.” 
The e book “Our Skin” was penned by Harlem activist Megan Madison and Brooklynite and library employee Jessica Ralli, and revealed final yr. It begins with a easy dialogue of pores and skin tones — then launches right into a screed that blames the thought of race on white individuals together with an  illustration of scary-looking human skulls encased in glass and sitting on cabinets. “A long time ago, way before you were born, a group of white people made up an idea called race. They sorted people by skin color and said that white people were better, smarter, prettier, and that they deserve more than everybody else,” the e book declares. It goes on to say “That isn’t true or fair at all!” with an image of  a “Caucasian” man holding up the “Most beautiful skull.”
The e book, aimed toward these ages 2 to five, has been distributed to a minimum of one Manhattan kindergarten, one on Staten Island in addition to a faculty in Brooklyn and seems to be a part of the Department of Education’s new “Universal Mosaic Curriculum.” The DOE introduced the plan beneath former Mayor de Blasio to standardize tutorial supplies and “better reflect” the system’s demographics. It is to start in 2023. The e book “Our Skin” was penned by Harlem activist Megan Madison and library employee Jessica Ralli. Ellis Kaplan
The tome is on a prompt studying record dad and mom can entry by way of the web site TeachingBooks. It is a part of the “Universal Mosaic Independent Reading Collections” for kindergartners created by the DOE’s Library Services, the positioning says. Brooklyn mum or dad chief Vito LaBella known as the textual content “inflammatory.”
“That page alone in my mind is just preaching hate,” he stated, referring to the textual content about sorting individuals by pores and skin shade. LaBella stated a minimum of one college in southwest Brooklyn’s District 20, the place he’s a member of the Community Education Council, obtained the books. The principal had been instructed by former Schools Chancellor Meisha Porter they might be coming. They had been to be delivered to kindergarten lessons, however the principal was holding off, he added. Megan Madison co-authored the youngsters’s e book. Amazon
“There were no instructions or curriculum guide with them,” stated LaBella, who’s in search of the Republican nod to problem state Sen. Andrew Gounardes. He stated he deliberate to debate his issues concerning the e book at Wednesday’s CEC assembly. A Manhattan mum or dad of a kindergartener noticed the e book in his son’s college this week in a field marked “Mosaic curriculum.”
The dad stated he seemed by way of the e book and stopped chilly on the web page saying white individuals invented race. “The book itself is fine and a lot of what is said in the book is productive and I think very helpful in a discussion of race,” he stated. “However, there’s just an excerpt from it that I think is so damaging that it should disqualify the whole book.”
Jessica Ralli is coordinator of early literacy applications on the Brooklyn library system. Amazon
He stated he would handle his issues with the principal. “Racism should be talked about, but it should be talked about correctly,” he stated. “I think that telling 5- and 6-year-olds that white people are all responsible for all racism is not helpful. It’s going to be very traumatic for many 5- and 6-year-olds who are going to blame themselves and blame their parents.”
The e book’s narrative provides that “racism is also the things people do and the unfair rules they make about race so that white people get more power.”
There is not any dialogue that teams apart from whites could be racist. Chien Kwok, a mum or dad chief and member of the Community Education Council in Manhattan’s District 2, stated he stumbled throughout “Our Skin” on the TeachingBooks website. The DOE says the e book is “not part of our prescribed curriculum.”
“The DOE should be sensitive to the fact that not every family will agree with what’s age appropriate,” Kwok stated. “They need to be transparent and have a way of opting out and providing alternatives that families are comfortable with – especially in the younger ages.”
One Asian-American mother from Queens requested whether or not the e book is for “a black or white audience — or for all children?”
“When you see these anti-racism books they almost always leave out Asians. It’s always spoken about in a white vs. black narrative – which is not what the city is – it’s a city of immigrants,” the mother stated. Elana Fishbein, head of the Pennsylvania-based group No Left Turn in Education, which opposes a “leftist” agenda in colleges, stated the e book is brainwashing younger youngsters and that the authors appeared to really feel dad and mom have nearly an ethical obligation to have their kids deal with pores and skin shade. A Manhattan mum or dad of a kindergartener noticed the e book in his son’s college this week in a field marked “Mosaic curriculum.”
Ellis Kaplan
“Nobody can tell you they’re not teaching CRT,” she stated, referring to important race concept, a topic principally taught in schools which argues that racism is embedded in United States authorized techniques and insurance policies. The use of “Our Skin” created an uproar in a New Jersey city final fall the place the varsity board ultimately determined the e book may solely be used as a part of a lesson plan and never  learn with out supervision. “It should not be placed in the general classroom library,” Westfield, NJ., Schools Superintendent Raymond González stated, according to a report. “Rather, this book is best to use as an interactive read aloud where educated professionals can skillfully present this information.”
The “Our Skin” authors additionally wrote youngsters’ books about gender and consent. The e book’s narrative provides that “racism is also the things people do and the unfair rules they make about race so that white people get more power.”
Ellis Kaplan
Madison, 34, is a “trainer” on the Bronx-based Center for Racial Justice in Education, a nonprofit that contracts with the DOE to “empower educators to dismantle patterns of racism and injustice. She referred a reporter to the authors’ web site. There, they defend the books as age acceptable and say that criticism was anticipated. “We know that the harmful ideologies that these books push back against are dominant and powerful in our society….But we’re not scared. We are firmly grounded in our professional and ethical responsibilities,” they wrote. The Brooklyn library system, the place Ralli, 42, is coordinator of early literacy applications, has 56 copies of “Our Skin” in its assortment. The DOE says the e book is “not part of our prescribed curriculum” however famous that colleges can purchase books on their very own. When a e book is “challenged,” the DOE stated it convenes a “Materials Evaluation Committee” made up of oldsters, lecturers, a faculty librarian and others to look at it. The division wouldn’t say if the e book was being evaluated. The DOE introduced the plan beneath former Mayor de Blasio to standardize tutorial supplies and “better reflect” the system’s demographics. “Our public schools do not shy away from books that teach our students history and can be used to deepen their understanding of the world around them. We value and honor our students’ perspectives and identities, and we provide opportunities for family voices to be heard on topics including school book lists,” a spokeswoman stated. Additional reporting by Cayla Bamberger and Susan Edelman

Kids’ e book ‘Our Skin’ in NYC colleges blames racism on white individuals

OverDrive Education Strengthens Curriculum Focus With Acquisition Of TeachingBooks.net
Combines expansive collection of supplemental materials with industry's largest digital book catalog and award-winning Sora reading app
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Oct 7, 2021 11:20 AM EDT
CLEVELAND, Oct. 7, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- OverDrive , the leading digital reading platform for libraries and schools, announced today that it has acquired TeachingBooks.net . TeachingBooks creates and maintains the leading source of supplemental materials that perpetuates informed, joyful reading across the curriculum while furthering successful literacy outcomes. The acquisition of TeachingBooks significantly enhances OverDrive Education's Sora reading app and platform to serve K-12 schools around the world. TeachingBooks provides K-12 schools with more than 265,000 curated materials from trusted educational sources, as well as their own proprietary content, to enrich how a book is taught in the classroom. For educators, these resources include literacy and standards connections, booklists and collection analysis, teaching ideas, diverse books toolkit, readers' advisory, vocabulary lists, interactive games and more. TeachingBooks.net is currently licensed and available to over 55,000 schools and libraries worldwide, serving more than 24 million students. "I started TeachingBooks twenty-one years ago with a dream of empowering every reader to connect to and learn from the author the moment they are reading a book," said Nick Glass, Founder and Head of TeachingBooks. "I'm so honored to be moving forward with OverDrive, building upon the TeachingBooks foundation that colleagues and customers have spectacularly built. With the merging of these amazing literacy services, we will enable readers, librarians and educators to benefit from both the book and impactful enrichment materials." "TeachingBooks has compiled and created one of the most valuable collection of resources for the books that are essential for student reading," said Steve Potash, Founder and CEO of OverDrive. "OverDrive's Marketplace, the largest catalog of digital books for student reading programs, combined with TeachingBooks' vast catalog of supplemental materials, provides educators and librarians a single source for both assigned curriculum and self-selected reading. " 
The terms of the acquisition were not announced. About OverDriveOverDrive strives to create "a world enlightened by reading." Serving a growing network of 73,000 libraries and schools in 88 countries, OverDrive delivers the industry's largest digital catalog of ebooks, audiobooks, magazines and other content through award-winning apps. The Libby reading app for libraries is one of Popular Mechanics' 20 Best Apps of the Decade, while the student reading app Sora is one of TIME's Best Inventions of 2019. OverDrive recently acquired Kanopy , the leading streaming video service for public libraries and academic institutions. Founded in 1986, OverDrive is based in Cleveland, Ohio USA and was named a Certified B Corp in 2017. www.overdrive.com
About TeachingBooks.netTeachingBooks began in 2000 with a dream of enabling every reader to learn from the author of a book the moment they are reading it. Today, in this time when equal access to quality digital resources feels more essential than ever, TeachingBooks.net and BookConnections.org (the public library interface) are helping to close this opportunity gap with our ever-growing library of 265,000+ materials. More than 55,000 schools and libraries have received more than 70 million unique investigations and searches since August 2020, personalizing readers' relationships to the authors and books they are reading. TeachingBooks' mission is to equitably give all readers insights and opportunities that deepen their understanding and joy of children's and young adult books. With original author interviews, video book trailers, discussion questions, vocabulary lists, and even interactive games about books, TeachingBooks brings books to life for communities everywhere. Awarded by the American Association of School Librarians as a Best Digital App of 2020, TeachingBooks is based in Madison, Wisconsin USA. www.TeachingBooks.net and www.BookConnections.org

OverDrive Education Strengthens Curriculum Focus With Acquisition Of TeachingBooks.net

Combines expansive collection of supplemental materials with industry's largest digital book catalog and award-winning Sora reading app
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CLEVELAND, Oct. 7, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- OverDrive , the leading digital reading platform for libraries and schools, announced today that it has acquired TeachingBooks.net . TeachingBooks creates and maintains the leading source of supplemental materials that perpetuates informed, joyful reading across the curriculum while furthering successful literacy outcomes. The acquisition of TeachingBooks significantly enhances OverDrive Education's Sora reading app and platform to serve K-12 schools around the world. TeachingBooks provides K-12 schools with more than 265,000 curated materials from trusted educational sources, as well as their own proprietary content, to enrich how a book is taught in the classroom. For educators, these resources include literacy and standards connections, booklists and collection analysis, teaching ideas, diverse books toolkit, readers' advisory, vocabulary lists, interactive games and more. TeachingBooks.net is currently licensed and available to over 55,000 schools and libraries worldwide, serving more than 24 million students. "I started TeachingBooks twenty-one years ago with a dream of empowering every reader to connect to and learn from the author the moment they are reading a book," said Nick Glass, Founder and Head of TeachingBooks. "I'm so honored to be moving forward with OverDrive, building upon the TeachingBooks foundation that colleagues and customers have spectacularly built. With the merging of these amazing literacy services, we will enable readers, librarians and educators to benefit from both the book and impactful enrichment materials." "TeachingBooks has compiled and created one of the most valuable collection of resources for the books that are essential for student reading," said Steve Potash, Founder and CEO of OverDrive. "OverDrive's Marketplace, the largest catalog of digital books for student reading programs, combined with TeachingBooks' vast catalog of supplemental materials, provides educators and librarians a single source for both assigned curriculum and self-selected reading. " 
The terms of the acquisition were not announced. About OverDrive
OverDrive strives to create "a world enlightened by reading." Serving a growing network of 73,000 libraries and schools in 88 countries, OverDrive delivers the industry's largest digital catalog of ebooks, audiobooks, magazines and other content through award-winning apps. The Libby reading app for libraries is one of Popular Mechanics' 20 Best Apps of the Decade, while the student reading app Sora is one of TIME's Best Inventions of 2019. OverDrive recently acquired Kanopy , the leading streaming video service for public libraries and academic institutions. Founded in 1986, OverDrive is based in Cleveland, Ohio USA and was named a Certified B Corp in 2017. www.overdrive.com
About TeachingBooks.net
TeachingBooks began in 2000 with a dream of enabling every reader to learn from the author of a book the moment they are reading it. Today, in this time when equal access to quality digital resources feels more essential than ever, TeachingBooks.net and BookConnections.org (the public library interface) are helping to close this opportunity gap with our ever-growing library of 265,000+ materials. More than 55,000 schools and libraries have received more than 70 million unique investigations and searches since August 2020, personalizing readers' relationships to the authors and books they are reading. TeachingBooks' mission is to equitably give all readers insights and opportunities that deepen their understanding and joy of children's and young adult books. With original author interviews, video book trailers, discussion questions, vocabulary lists, and even interactive games about books, TeachingBooks brings books to life for communities everywhere. Awarded by the American Association of School Librarians as a Best Digital App of 2020, TeachingBooks is based in Madison, Wisconsin USA. www.TeachingBooks.net and www.BookConnections.org  
David Burleigh

11:20 ET
OverDrive Education Strengthens Curriculum Focus with Acquisition of TeachingBooks.net

Vooks is a company that focuses on the education and entertainment sectors, providing a digital platform for animated storybooks. The company offers an online library of animated, read-aloud storybooks with engaging music, sound effects, and read-along text, designed to inspire a love of reading in children. Vooks primarily serves the education sector, with its services being used by teachers and parents for children's learning and entertainment. It was founded in 2017 and is based in Portland, Oregon.

Vooks

TeachingBooks and Vooks have partnered to provide a free collection of titles and resources for everyone in your community , including 35 Vooks animated storybooks and 300 + age-appropriate resources .

Vooks and TeachingBooks Team Up to Offer Free Collection of Animated Storybooks and Instructional Resources for Schools and Libraries - OverDrive

ClassLink delivers access to a user's web resources from all their devices. Users can also launch remote Windows desktop applications on their browser, with no software to install.

Classlink

University of Wisconsin-Madison

San Francisco Giants

Major League Baseball

Acquired

TeachingBooks is an online subscription service that adds a multimedia dimension to the reading experiences of children and young adults. The company is based in Wisconsin, Madison.

On October 7th, 2021, TeachingBooks was acquired by OverDrive. The terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Name	Nick Glass
Work History	University of Wisconsin-Madison, San Francisco Giants, and Major League Baseball
Title	Founder
Status	Current

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