A View of Hall1 inside the Taipei International Book Expo
Tumblehome Learning had a busy and exciting first day at the Taiwan International Book Exhibition. The exhibition lasts five days, hosts nearly a thousand exhibitors, and attracts more than 500,000 visitors. Yesterday, those visitors included Taiwan’s President Ma, who spoke about the number of authors and love of books in Taiwan. TIBE is the largest book fair in Asia and fourth largest in the world.
Tumblehome Learning's Booth A 907 at the T'ibE
But size isn’t the only reason we came to this fair. Taiwan is a highly literate nation of 23 million and supports over 40,000 new titles a year. There’s a 24-hour bookstore in Taipei, and parents are intimately concerned with their children’s education. Taipei is sister city to Boston, where Tumblehome Learning was founded, and Taiwan and Massachusetts are close competitors in TIMSS, a periodic international study of students’ math and science understanding. Tumblehome Learning considers Taiwan a sister spirit and a doorway to the Asian market, which is why we decided to establish a branch in this country.
President Ma Ying Jiu of Taiwan speaks to the 2012 Taiwan International Book Exhibition
We are showing three different sets of products in our booth.
1. We present four of our first Tumblehome Learning books, including an elementary science mystery, a biography, and a graphic novel.
2. We are representing the National Center for Technological Literacy at Boston’s Museum of Science, one of the top science museums in the US. The NCTL’s Engineering is Elementary series introduces the engineering design cycle through twenty engaging stories of children from around the world solving problems in their communities. These books are now in use in all fifty US states, where they have been shown to increase children’s understanding of what engineering is – the first step to building interest. We are introducing these books, along with other NCTL texts at the middle school level, to Asia for the first time.
3. We are also partnering with Scarletta Press to highlight two children’s books in their new Scarletta Junior line, Lost in Lexicon and The Ice Castle, both written by Tumblehome Learning co-founder Pendred Noyce.
Tumblehome Learning booth at TIBE
Our first day at the fair brought a lot of visitors interested both in the idea of introducing engineering concepts at the elementary level and in Tumblehome Learning’s philosophy of inspiring kids’ interest in science through enjoyable stories and linked hands-on experiences. We kept busy handing out materials and chatting with kindred spirits and potential partners. In Day Two, we expect to be meeting even more.
