Birmingham Children's Book Company Forms Alliance with Franklin

WEST MIDLANDS, England and BURLINGTON, N.J., Dec. 7, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Franklin Electronic Publishers, Inc. and Asian-e announced today that the companies have entered into a comprehensive alliance to launch the well-received Aku and Kamu children's book series for Franklin's AnyBook electronic reader system.  Asian-e has recently launched digital apps based on the Aku and Kamu series for the iPhone, iPad, and Nokia phones.

(Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20111207/NY18074)

Asian-e, the creator and producer of the Aku and Kamu books selling in shops across the UK, the Middle East and Southeast Asia, are strengthening their digital portfolio after the overwhelming success of the hardback stories and the impact they are having on young children.  This agreement provides Asian-e with a platform based on Franklin's existing reader technology to introduce Aku & Kamu to the US market and European markets.

The Aku and Kamu series of educational story book content helps to develop children's communication, creative and interpersonal skills, through interaction with their teachers, parents and guardians as they learn through captivating stories.

The AnyBook Reader is a unique tool for children, parents and grandparents that helps to make reading fun and more enjoyable.  AnyBook Reader uses a simple touch, record and playback process that allows users to read any story and record their own voice while they read it. In that way, a child can hear their parents' voice or any other "readers" voice anytime they want to read.

As an adjunct to the Aku and Kamu mobile apps, the AnyBook Reader demonstrates how technological advances can assist in children's learning development.

"While our AnyBook Reader is designed to work with any book and not require that special books are purchased, we found the Aku and Kamu series to be especially compelling," said Barry J. Lipsky, president and chief executive officer.  Each story in the series leaves the reader with wanting to know more about what happens to their favorite character.  The child doesn't even know they are learning but each book in the series focuses on different aspects of life's lessons such as emotions or bullying by helping the child to answer, for example, "Why do people cry when they can laugh instead?"  Each book provides questions a parent can ask the child in context to the lesson to help the child grasp the concept," he added.

Creator of Aku & Kamu and Director of Asian-e, Asif Bashir, tells us more:

"The AnyBook Reader product helps to address literacy rates through its built in audio narration feature.  This provides the ability for parents, teachers and readers to record their own voice whilst reading each page and then a child can listen to the book in a familiar voice. Soon children all over the world will be reading and learning about Malaysia and indeed Malaysia's first Polar Bear and Koala Bear!"

The company's commitment and drive to using innovative tools and technologies to help children learn and the concept behind the technology is never far from the news.  A recent BBC report suggested that parents should read and interact with their children for 15 minutes a day to enable them to reach their full potential.  The launch of the AnyBook Reader series and the mobile apps compliment the print books and are Asian-e's way to ensure that the next generation is getting the best possible start in life.

Born in Birmingham, Asif has always had a strong appetite for enterprise and launched Asian-e as a global brand back in 2001 with one clear goal – to make learning more fun, exciting and appealing to children, engaging and captivating their minds.

The AnyBook Reader with "Introducing Aku and Kamu" will be available during Q1 of 2012.

About Franklin

Franklin Electronic Publishers Incorporated is a world leader in electronic handheld information, having sold approximately 42,000,000 electronic books.  Current titles available directly or through partners number more than 116,000 in sixteen languages, under license from world-class publishers such as Merriam-Webster, Oxford University Press, Larousse, Langenscheidt, PONS, and HarperCollins, and are focused in four areas: language expansion, language learning, reading enhancement, and writing enhancement.  The Company also licenses its underlying technology to partners, which include Adobe and Sun Microsystems. Franklin's products are available at 49,000 retail outlets worldwide, through catalogs, and online at www.franklin.com.

About Asian-e

Asian-e is a Birmingham based consulting, education and technology solutions company that was formed in 2001. At Asian-e, we are passionate about developing innovative high quality children's products. We believe that all children deserve a quality start to life. The Aku & Kamu brand has been designed to make learning fun through creativity and innovation thus overcoming one of the key barriers towards learning, in that it is deemed to be dull and boring. The Aku & Kamu product vision is based on improving the lives of young children and their families, by building on the important relationship between education, family and well-being. The stories are designed to incorporate key outcomes and underlying aims of the Every Child Matters framework. More information on the Aku & Kamu products can be found at www.akuandkamu.com.

Contact:
Asif Bashir
0121 698 8524
[email protected]         

AMP3 Public Relations:                                                                                      
Alyson Campbell                                                                    
(646) 827-9594                                                                                  
[email protected] 

SOURCE Franklin