If you'd like a free e-book of Naomi Novik's novel, Temeraire (aka His Majesty's Dragon)- or one of several other first-in-a-popular-series books, take a look here. Legal, too. (That's the US cover).
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Here's the publisher's description:
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Aerial combat brings a thrilling new dimension to the Napoleonic Wars as valiant warriors rise to Britain's defense by taking to the skies . . . not aboard aircraft but atop the mighty backs of fighting dragons. When HMS Reliant captures a French frigate and seizes its precious cargo, an unhatched dragon egg, fate sweeps Capt. Will Laurence from his seafaring life into an uncertain future-and an unexpected kinship with a most extraordinary creature. Thrust into the rarified world of the Aerial Corps as master of the dragon Temeraire, he will face a crash course in the daring tactics of airborne battle. For as France's own dragon-borne forces rally to breach British soil in Bonaparte's boldest gambit, Laurence and Temeraire must soar into their own baptism of fire.
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It's a terrific read. There are several formats offered as well as pdf.
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The next question is, how will you let your kids know? Library blog? Signs? Bookmarks? Library newsletter? Parental newsletter? What avenues do you have to publicise the library, books and reading? How do you use them? How more might you use them?
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Cheers, Ruth
ADDED LATER
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I innocently posted to a couple of Australian teacher librarian lists, to let people know about this.
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It started off a fascinating discussion about whether or not kids like ebooks (do they know what they are? have they read any?), whether or not we should be pushing yet more electronic stuff at kids (aren't they galloping into the e-world without any pushing from us?) and that oft-repeated and never-solved debate about print books vs ebooks, paper vs screen.
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Below is an email I sent in reply to these concerns and ideas. I will freely admit to having composed it in between answering kids' questions, finding books, working out why we suddenly had half a class appearing at the library minus note or a teacher, answering the phone, and other such minutiae and amusements of a teacher librarian's day. Oh, and bites of my lunch, better late than never. So if this isn't the most polished prose you've ever read - it's got immediacy. Can't have everything!
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I don't think for and against e-books is for or against paper books. Me, I love books and reading, in all sorts and ways. Some more than others - as yet, I haven't found a graphic novel that stirs my soul. But I know plenty of my students have - they love their manga/war stories in graphic novel form/and so on, and so I buy these for the library. (And when Diana Gabaldon's Outlander graphic novel comes out this year or next, it may be the one that converts me personally to graphic novels.)
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One of the acknowledged impacts of the internet/social networking/sms and texting/ is that reading and writing are a part of these (even if it involves sms-language, a strange and wonderful beast on which my eyes still tend to stumble). In some respects, our students are reading and writing more, interacting in these social contexts. And are kids being forced to drown in electronica, or are they cheerfully immersing themselves in this brave new world? And aren't they, in so many ways, finding stories in this brave new world? Social narratives in Facebook entries. Adventures in video games. Snapshots in songs on their iPods. Stories of so many kinds in DVDs and movies. All sorts of narratives on websites - comics in serial form, fanfic, blogged lives, and so on. Human beings are hungry for stories, fascinated by them, and we find them in all sorts of ways, from the oral sagas of centuries ago through to today, and tomorrow, whatever it may offer.
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I have an immense loyalty to print, but I also have an immense responsibility to encourage my kids to read, and provide lots of opportunities for this.
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In this country, e-readers are pricey - even the Kindle in the US isn't dirt cheap, but the Amazon setup enabling instantaneous download of any of thousands of books via their mobile phone network offers an option that we don't have here, yet. But I've read a lot of discussion about it, including many people who love love love their print books and who have, to their surprise, found themselves converted to Kindle reading.
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Part of what's happening with the design of e-readers is the aim of making them 'invisible' as books are 'invisible' - text easy on the eyes, pages turn readily, a size and shape that lets you curl up and read with this as you would with a paper book, so you are engaged by the narrative rather than distracted by the format.
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In every such discussion that I've read, the commentary splits between the Kindleconverts (who cannot imagine going back), the diehard paperbookreaders (who cannot imagine changing), and those who range between the two, liking some reading more on their ereaders, preferring other reading from print (fiction or text nonfiction works better than illustrated nonfiction on the ereaders, is my impression). Each to their own. But we aren't just talking about what we like, but what we can do for our kids.
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Surely, and I know the boundaries vary between primary and secondary kids, we have a responsibility to offer choices. I don't expect every kid will love graphic novels/e books/print books, for that matter. But a choice lets them find their own way. Whether we, as older readers, read or like ebooks isn't really relevant. And how many kids have tried ebooks? Know they exist? Aren't we preparing them, to the best of our ability, to the world into which they will travel, rather than limiting them by the world in which we've been travelling. Our experiences of course inform our teaching, but we have a responsibility to be open to change, and to offer our students choices.
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It's the same reason for having books covering a range of reading abilities - I'd rather have a kid reading Twilight or an Aussie Chomp, than say, if you ain't reading Dickens, you ain't reading. Read something, anything, get engaged with this, and then some will move on to read more. Some may stick with Twilight, or quick reads, or Warhammer (it's the ONLY thing I read, miss). But they'll have been reading.
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It seemed, and seems to me, that one of the advantages of alerting kids to an e-book freebie like Temeraire is the fact that it's a good read, a terrific story, and it's free. A sample. No obligation. Something maybe new, and so you can see if it suits you or not. Kids can see if it suits them or not.
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But I have a problem with the idea that if I don't like the concept, or don't approve of it for reasons to which I may have given much thought, then I won't tell my kids about it. We undoubtedly have a role as gatekeepers, but with great power, comes great responsibility (thanks, Spiderman). An e-book isn't the end of the world, or the last straw, or anything like it. It's a story in a different format. A chance to read. A fishing opportunity to catch another reader, to share a story.
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I'm for that.
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Cheers, Ruth
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PS GREAT article on e-books from the Wall St Journal: How the e-book will change the way we read and write, by Steven Johnson.
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