Cricket and Other Magazines Now Available to Teachers Serving Kids in Need

ePals Brings Award-Winning Magazines to First Book

WASHINGTON, April 6, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- First Book, the nonprofit that provides books to kids in need, will now be offering Cricket and other award-winning kid's magazines from ePals to the 27,000 schools and programs in its national network.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20101214/DC17316LOGO-b)

"These are amazing titles: high-quality, award-winning and loved by both children and teachers," said Kyle Zimmer, president and CEO of First Book. "This is exactly the sort of content First Book strives to bring to kids in need, so they'll have the same great opportunities to fall in love with reading as more affluent children."

"We're really excited about this partnership," Zimmer said. "It's going to make a real difference in the lives of a lot of children."

The magazines will be available through the First Book Marketplace, a website available exclusively to teachers and program leaders who work with children from low-income families. An annual classroom subscription – 30 copies of each issue – retails for $1,018, but is available through First Book for $513.

"We're thrilled to be working with First Book," says Jason Patenaude, president of ePals' publishing division. "While opening up a new channel for our products is always a positive, it's particularly exciting to be putting such rich and varied materials into the hands of kids who would otherwise lack access."

First Book will offer a range of magazines for all ages, including Babybug, Ladybug, Click, Spider, Ask and Cricket. Collectively, the series has won every award in North America, including the Association of Educational Publishers Golden Lamp Award and the Parent's Guide to Children's Media Award.

About First Book

First Book has distributed more than 90 million books and educational resources to programs and schools serving children from low-income families throughout the United States and Canada.  By making new, high-quality books available on an ongoing basis, First Book is transforming the lives of children in need and elevating the quality of education. For more information, please visit us online or follow our latest news on Facebook and Twitter.

About ePals Corporation

ePals Corporation (TSXV: SLN) is an education media company and the leading provider of safe social learning networks (SLN). Focused on the K-12 market, ePals offers elementary and secondary school administrators, teachers, students and parents worldwide a safe and secure platform for building educational communities, providing quality digital content and facilitating collaboration for effective 21st century learning. ePals' award-winning products include: the ePals Global Community™; SchoolMail®365; LearningSpace®; In2Books®, a common core eMentoring program that builds reading, writing and critical thinking skills; and popular children's educational publishing brands including Cricket® and Cobblestone®. ePals customers and partners include International Baccalaureate, Microsoft Corporation, Dell Inc., IBM Corp., National Geographic and leading school districts across the United States and globally. ePals serves approximately 700,000 educators and reaches millions of teachers, students and parents in approximately 200 countries and territories. For the ePals Global Community, visit epals.com.

Contact: Brian Minter of First Book,
[email protected]
202-639-0115

Sue Hanson of ePals,
[email protected]
763-657-0987

SOURCE First Book