Every week during Bathroom Reading Month, we will host a giveaway for a book of your choice from the Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader collection. Just to spice it up, we will ask you to answer a question on the blog. At the end of the week, we will pick a random winner from the answers and post it on the blog along with our favorite answers. Remember that this is in addition to our “mother-of-all” contest: enter to win the entire in-print library of Uncle John’s Bathroom Readers.

Week #3: At the Library

QUESTION: If you were stuck in a library,
what section of would you spend the most time in and why?

Answer the question in the comments section of this post to be entered to win a book of your choice from the Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader library. Answers must be posted by June 19, 2013, midnight PST to be eligible to win. A winner will be announced on Friday, June 21, 2013. Open to US residents, 18 year + only.

Need a little inspiration? Read all about one of the nation’s most famous libraries from Uncle John’s Plunges into History Again.

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LET THERE BE LIBRARIES

Andrew Carnegie was no saint—just ask anyone who worked for him. But he was considered the patron saint of libraries.

Andrew Carnegie was a Scottish immigrant whose family moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, when he was 13. His first job was as a bobbin boy, a kid who handles spindles in a cotton factory. Then, he got a job as a messenger, and next, he started working his way up at the Pennsylvania Railroad. As he got older and his talent with money became apparent, his mother mortgaged her house to provide him with some seed money for investments. Andrew parlayed his stake into a small fortune. He started his steel business, and in 1901, sold it to J. P. Morgan for $480 million (390 million euros).

SHREWD, BUT NO SCROOGE

Carnegie was always a big believer in charity. In 1889, he wrote an essay called “The Gospel of Wealth,” in which he proposed that it was the responsibility of the wealthy to share their fortunes for the betterment of the people. But he didn’t just believe in throwing money into the wind, either. So, in his later days, he pondered how he could do some good without wasting his money. A childhood mentor, wealthy retiree Colonel Anderson, provided his inspiration.

Colonel Anderson owned hundreds of books. He let neighborhood kids browse his shelves on Saturday afternoons, take books home, and come back for more—just like a library. That was how Carnegie got his childhood education, and he was ever grateful.

CHECK THIS OUT

Carnegie built Pittsburgh a grand library in 1899. One library might have been philanthropic enough for most men, but Carnegie was a library-building machine—2,509 in all. He built them in every state in the United States except Rhode Island. He built them in the United Kingdom too, including his hometown of Dunfermline, Scotland. He built them in Canada, New Zealand, and Australia—even Fiji.

By the time of his death, Andrew Carnegie had given away 90 percent of his fortune. And his name didn’t appear above the entrance of any of his libraries. Instead, there was the simple inscription: “Let There Be Light.”

Congrats to Ken for winning our second weekly giveaway in the month of June. It was loads of fun reading about your favorite children’s book characters. Here are the highlights.

There were several Harry Potter fans. Although, we have to admit, our favorite was:

Probably Harry Potter (although its not a kids book, really) only cuz I love the fact that I could turn my hubby into a toad

We hope her hubby doesn’t read our blog.

Here are some of our other favorites:

I would trade places with Christopher Robin so I could finally fix Eeyore’s tail!!

Charlie Bucket from “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” by Roald Dahl. To have the experience and joy of touring the factory. To meet WILLY WONKA! And then become his Heir!!!!!!! A true dream … a dream of dreams…. ahhhhh.. IF ONLY.

Curious George. That way, I can do pretty much whatever I want and just excuse it as “Hey, I’m a monkey, what do you expect?”

Fantastic Mr. Fox, since he basically gets free food for the rest of his life.

I would like to be Marco from And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street by Dr. Seuss. It is still one of my favorite stories. It reminds me of the imagination I had as a child. I love reading it to my kids now and seeing the jaws drop slightly, knowing that they will soon be on the lookout for strange happenings at everyday places.

And, last but not least:

Eragon, because dragon.

Have a great weekend everyone.

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Our Father’s Day Sale is almost over. 30% off the entire store and FREE shipping on order of $35 and more till June 16! Also, make sure to enter our June is Bathroom Reading Month giveaway for a chance to win the entire in-print library of Uncle John’s Bathroom Readers.

Every week during Bathroom Reading Month, we will host a giveaway for a book of your choice from the Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader collection. Just to spice it up, we will ask you to answer a question on the blog. At the end of the week, we will pick a random winner from the answers and post it on the blog along with our favorite answers. Remember that this is in addition to our “mother-of-all” contest: enter to win the entire in-print library of Uncle John’s Bathroom Readers.

Week #2: In a Kids Book

QUESTION: If you could trade places with any character from a children’s story,
whom would you pick and why?

Answer the question in the comments section of this post to be entered to win a book of your choice from the Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader library. Answers must be posted by June 12, 2013, midnight PST to be eligible to win. A winner will be announced on Friday, June 14, 2013. Open to US residents only.

To inspire you, here is an article from Uncle John’s Endlessly Engrossing Bathroom Reader about some of the very first children’s books ever written.

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CHILDREN’S BOOKS

Walk into any bookstore today and you’ll find walls full of books written specifically for kids. But a few hundred years ago it wasn’t like that—there were actually very few. Here are the first children’s books ever written.

THE COLLOQUY

Possibly the earliest example of literature made specifically for children, The Colloquy was written and distributed in England around A.D. 1005 by a Benedictine monk named Aelfric. At the time, the Benedictines were trying to use education to help Europe emerge from centuries of social decline, and this playful textbook was meant to teach kids about both careers and Latin grammar. The book is written in the form of dialogue between a teacher and several pupils (colloquy means “dialogue” in Latin), the pupils taking on the roles of several professions. An example:

Teacher: How did you dare to cut the boar’s throat?

Hunter: My dogs drove him towards me, and I stood against him and suddenly slew him.

Teacher: You must have been very brave indeed.

Hunter: A hunter must be very brave, since all kinds of beasts lurk in the woods.

THE DISTICHS OF CATO

This collection of witty proverbs for adults was written in Rome by Dionysius Cato around A.D. 300. Rediscovered in Europe in the 1200s, it was translated into many languages and used to teach children grammar and morals. Distich means “couplet,” which was the form of the writing. Example: “Be stupid when the time or situation demands / To fake stupidity is at times the highest prudence.” The Distichs of Cato remained one of the most popular Latin textbooks for several centuries—and even made its way to the American colonies, where it was published by Benjamin Franklin in 1735.

THE BOOK OF THE KNIGHT OF THE TOWER

In 1371 French aristocrat Geoffroy IV de la Tour Landry wrote this collection of fables to teach his two daughters proper behavior in royal society. The moral of one story: Do not have sex with a knight, because you might get pregnant, and then your father would have to drown you in a well in the dark and the knight would be “flayed alive.” The Book of the Knight of the Tower was translated into German and English and was very popular for two decades.

A TOKEN FOR CHILDREN

The 1600s were the height of the extremely conservative and religious Puritan movement in England. How did adults teach kids to fear hell? Pastor James Janeway’s A Token for Children: An Exact Account of the Conversion, Holy and Exemplary Lives and Joyful Deaths of Several Young Children, published in 1671. It’s a collection of stories about kids (some as young as two) who commit sins, see the error of their ways, become pious, and then die. But because they repented, their deaths are accompanied by beautiful lights and the singing of angels. For the next two centuries, A Token for Children was one of the most popular children’s books in England and the American colonies.

TOMMY THUMB’S PRETTY SONG BOOK

By the mid-1700s, attitudes toward children were changing—they were allowed to be what we think of as kids for the first time. Tommy Thumb’s Pretty Song Book, written by “M. Cooper” in 1744, was an early fun book, and is said to be the first published collection of nursery rhymes, many of them still familiar, including “Sing a Song of Sixpence,” “Baa Baa Black Sheep,” and “Hickory Dickory Dock.” Only one copy of Tommy Thumb’s Pretty Song Book exists today—in the British Museum in London.

A LITTLE PRETTY POCKET BOOK

First released in 1744, English author and publisher John Newbery’s A Pretty Little Pocket Book: Intended for the Instruction and Amusement of Little Master Tommy and Pretty Miss Polly consisted of illustrations, rhymes, and instructions for various games. An example, titled “Base-Ball”: “The Ball once struck off / Away flies the Boy / To the next destin’d Post / And then Home with Joy.” Newberry was the first publisher to market literature just for kids, emphasizing education through entertainment. To honor Newbery for essentially creating modern children’s literature, the American Library Association’s award for the best children’s book of the year is named the Newbery Medal.

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Our Father’s Day Sale is in full swing. 30% off the entire store and FREE shipping on order of $35 and more. Also, make sure to enter our June is Bathroom Reading Month giveaway for a chance to win the entire in-print library of Uncle John’s Bathroom Readers.

We have a winner! Lendell H. is the random winner of our first weekly giveaway in the month of June. As we continue our celebration of June is Bathroom Reading Month, it is clear that we have lots of bathroom readers out there. Here is what we learned about all of you from what you keep in your Throne Rooms.

• More than one person has the Bro Code. Yo!
• Several of you take your tablet into the bathroom (check out our e-book sale: 50% off)
• Several of you are die-hard BRI fans and refuse to read anything else in the bathroom. Cheers to you!

If you are looking for some ideas of what to keep in the bathroom, see a full list of below from fellow bathroom readers:

• Men’s Health
• Bro Code
• The Intellectual Devotional
• Old copies of Reader’s Digest (60′s-80′s)
• AllYou Magazine
• The Complete Calvin and Hobbes
• Political Junk
• Jeff Shaara Civil War novels
• Useless Japanese Inventions
• Complete novels of Jane Austen
• Readers’ Digest
• WWII Magazine
• Entertainment Weekly
• Old Nintendo Powers
• Comic books
• No Regrets by Ace Frehley
• Stephen King books
• Betsy Rossen Elliot’s books
• Stephen Colbert’s “I Am America, And So Can You”
• Matt Groening’s “Big Book of Hell”
• And, of course, Uncle John’s Bathroom Readers (currently on sale for 30% off, ends June 16)

 

Welcome to another amazing June is Bathroom Reading Month contest. It’s true that we have a love for reading in the bathroom year-round. But, June is when we can celebrate it with all of our fans. For our grand prize this year, we are thrilled to offer an entire set of Uncle John’s Bathroom Readers currently in print. That is more than 80 BOOKS!

Entering is easy. There is no need to dance with a star, survive on a deserted island, or do math problems. You simply need to sign up for our irregular email newsletter below. If you are already an email subscriber, filling out the form will still count as your contest entry. However, we promise not to send you duplicate emails to the same email address.

Grand Prize:
A complete library of in-print Uncle John’s Bathroom Readers

2nd Prize:
A complete library of Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader regional books

3rd Prize:
A complete library of Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader puzzle books

Bathroom Reading Month is when we thank our loyal fans by hosting giveaways. Check back weekly for other fun giveaways of Uncle John’s books throughout the month of June. To review the complete list of rules, read the tiny print that the lawyers made up. We wish you all the best of luck!