The Big Bad Wolf Books 2019 — the first such event in Myanmar — kicks off yesterday with over 1 million English books from international distributors up for sale at a discount of 50-90 per cent. The 24-hour, 11-day sales event is held at Myanmar Event Park in Yangon, and will end on 28 January.
“This event is a milestone for Myanmar’s reading community. It will encourage young readers to read English books. Reading makes us productive. The more we read, the more enlightened we become. It also helps boost social interaction skills, knowledge and quality of life,” said U Myo Aung, the organizer of the Big Bad Wolf book sales festival.
“The socio-economic status of the people of our country is undergoing a change. The Big Bad Wolf Books sales event will feature over 1 million unused books. Readers will be able to buy English books at affordable prices at the event,” he said.
The sales festival will have classics, science fiction, romance and aesthetic novels, comic books, colouring books, toolkits and other books concerned with business, agriculture, health, and cooking. The Big Bad Wolf Book Sale is also known as Asia’s biggest seller of augmented reality (AR) books and is the exclusive seller of Little Hippo AR books.
Little Hippo AR books use AR technology to help children read, play, and learn. They are designed to encourage children to read more by making reading fun.
Over 20,000 types or genres of books will be featured at the event. As the sale will be on 24 hours, students and those who are not free in the daytime will also be able to visit and buy books.
The sale will also have a photo contest. Buyers can participate in the contest on Facebook by adding hashtags #SNAPANDWIN and/or #BIGBADBOOKHAUL. Winners will be selected on 27 January, and will be awarded a 76×80 cm bookshelf. More details about the contest are available on the Big Bad Wolf Books MM Facebook page. The Big Bad Wolf Book Sale has partnered with CB Bank, for the first time. CB Bank will be the official bank for the Yangon sale. All CB Bank card holders will get 5-per-cent cashback, of up to K10,000, during the book sales event.
In addition, the Big Bad Wolf Book Sale event will also include a Red Readerhood Programme, under which readers can purchase books and donate them at a booth located on the right of the cashier counter. The sale’s organizers will donate the books to 100 community libraries across the country, in cooperation with Save the Library.
—GNLM (Translated by EMM)
