The book launch on Rare Disease Day was a huge success- a big thank you to the Rare Disease Foundation for all of their help in organizing it! We had chapters of the RDF selling books across Canada that day, and were fortunate to have had some really nice media coverage – radio and tv, in both English and French. We’ve had an outpouring of stories coming in since the launch from far and wide from families who’ve been enjoying the book, and many have been bringing the books to their schools too. In addition to families of children with various health challenges sharing heartwarming stories of how they’ve been using the book (I’ve had parents send me videos of themselves reading it to their children while in hospital) it’s being used to open up dialogue about diversity in other contexts too. In fact, I did a classroom reading recently that spurred a discussion about religion and cultural differences after one girl shared that she felt different like the animals in the book because she was the only child in her class that was Muslim. Very neat to see kids connecting with the book, and teachers and parents using it in these different ways!

The book has been selling very well; 800 hardcover books have been sold and 300 Ebooks have been pre-ordered in the last two months! Since 1,000 hardcover books were pre-ordered during and after the Kickstarter campaign, that means that 1800 of the 2500 books printed have already been sold. Considering that we don’t have any distribution in the U.S. yet, and that we are only 2 months post-launch, that’s a pretty good start!

Art prints are also now for sale here on the book’s website, and have been selling well too. In fact, I am in the final phases of preparing for the installation of large mounted versions of the arts prints to be displayed at BC Women’s & Children’s Hospital in Vancouver; I will share photos once the installation is complete.

Translation of the book into French and Arabic is well underway- the text for both versions has been completed and is with the designer now to work her magic. It’s very exciting to see it in other languages and I can’t wait to share that with you- soon!

In other good news, the book has continued to get great reviews – It was just featured in “Resource Links” a well-established publication that reviews classroom and learning resources and they gave Rare Is Everywhere their highest rating possible: “E” = “Excellent, enduring, everyone should see it!” It’s also been enthusiastically reviewed around the web and in print (the last one below, by Raising Mom, features a lot of great suggestions about how to get the most out of the book, geared toward both parents and teachers):

BC Book Look

Working Mommy Journal

Alexa And Ravigue

Modern Mama

Raising Mom

After a lengthy delay, I am also very, very excited to share with you that the Ebook and Activity book are finally available! The Ebook file itself has been ready for quite some time, but as I discovered, configuring a secure, reliable, and widely accessible way of delivering it took much longer, and was far more challenging, than I could have imagined. Thankfully, it is ready now- both the Ebook and Activity book are available on the book’s website. The Ebook is also available on Amazon.

Last, but certainly not least, I am in the process of organizing the distribution of the 500 books that were so generously purchased for donation by so many of you.

Thank you for reading and happy spring!

Warmly,

Deborah