BookBox is a social enterprise that innovated the concept of “AniBooks” or animated books to support emergent literacy and language skills. We overcome the distribution challenges of print by piping reading to children on digital and electronic media.
In our conception a “book” is a reading experience that can travel in print and other audio-visual media.
We believe that the print medium, though desirable, is severely limited in its ability to bring reading to the masses of children in India, spread across 640,000 villages, speaking 22 official languages and numerous dialects, and 75% living on less than $2 a day.
Our mission is to produce animated stories that are powered by Same Language Subtitling (SLS) a scientifically tested and proven approach to help improve reading skills and language learning, ultimately promoting a love for reading. We create content for any audio-visual media platform such as broadcast TV, DVD/VCD, mobile phones, handhelds, internet, and last but not least, print.
AniBooks flow from a simple fact – children love to watch cartoons. Thus, AniBooks are animated stories for children, with the narration appearing on-screen as Same Language Subtitles (SLS). BookBox was founded in 2004 after winning a business plan competition at Stanford University, called, the Social e-Challenge. BookBox has so far produced over 30 AniBooks in over 30 languages and aims to create sufficient content to, eventually, mount TV programs.
