page_title: Big Brother Mouse
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Big Brother Mouse / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Reading aloud is one way that Big Brother Mouse, a literacy project in Laos, gets children excited about reading. This photo shows Khamla Panyasoukm, the director of the project, reading to children who lingered on after the end of a local reading festival.
context_page_description: Big Brother Mouse is a not-for-profit publishing project in Laos.
  Big Brother Mouse publishes books that improve literacy and quality of life; and on making those books accessible, particularly in rural Lao villages. Books are scarce in Laos. Many people have never read anything except old textbooks and government pamphlets.
  The project uses the slogan, "Books that make literacy fun!" Its first books, published in 2006, were easy picture books designed to have a strong appeal for children. Since then, it has expanded to publish books for all ages, "designed not only to make reading fun, but also to share information about the wider world." A growing number of titles focus on health, nutrition, history, and science.
context_section_description: The founder, retired book publisher Sasha Alyson, first visited Laos in May, 2003, and discovered that many children in Lao villages had never seen a book. In fact, he himself “never saw a book in Laos. That gave me the idea for a publishing project here, that would both teach publishing skills and create books.” He began exploring the feasibility of such an idea.
  For three years, Alyson regularly visited Laos from a temporary base in Thailand, exploring the feasibility of the project. He met with governmental officials, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), teachers, and students. During that period, Alyson also worked with two Lao college students: Khamla Panyasouk and Siphone Vouthisakdee. Together they developed five easy and entertaining books for children, often using popular books from the west for inspiration about how to make books appealing. These first five books were:
  Frog, Alligator, Buffalo by Khamla Panyasouk. This was an alphabet book, with a short humorous rhyme for each consonant in the Lao alphabet. (In the Lao alphabet, vowels are not considered part of the regular alphabet.)
  The Cat that Meditated by Siphone Vouthisakdee. Siphone wrote four traditional folktales he had learned from his parents and grandparents. The title story tells about a cat that vows to stop eating meat, so the mice begin to bring it vegetables. But one by one, the mice disappear.
  Bangkok Bob by Sasha Alyson. Inspired by the Curious George books, this tells about a young monkey who visits Bangkok and is overwhelmed by the skyscrapers and big trucks, which he thinks are tall trees and galloping elephants.
  Baby Frog, Baby Monkey by Siphone Vouthisakdee. Taking inspiration from The Foot Book, by Dr. Seuss, the author used rhymes, repetition, and the pairing of opposite words, to create a book for very young readers.
  The Polar Bear Visits Laos by Sasha Alyson. Inspired by another Dr. Seuss book, Hop on Pop, this matches short sentences that include an internal rhyme with cartoon images.
  Three of the books were illustrated by Ounla Santi, a Vientiane art student who has continued to illustrate many books for the project. Two others were illustrated by Tha Tao and Taeng Thaotueheu, high school students who placed first and second in an art contest that Alyson sponsored in an effort to find promising young illustrators.
  Publishers in Laos are required to have a special publishing license, and each book must be registered with and approved by the government. At the end of 2005, Alyson entered into an agreement with Dokked, a Vientiane-based publisher, to act as publisher for these first five books.  They came off the press in March 2006, under the Dokked imprint, but also carrying the Big Brother Mouse logo. The following month a sixth book, The Big Chicken, was published in a similar cooperative arrangement with Action with Lao Children, a Vientiane-based NGO.
  Soon after that, Sasha agreed with Khamla Panyasouk, author of one of the first books, that they would form a new entity to act as publisher for future books, with Khamla as the owner, and Alyson as the volunteer adviser. In June 2006, Khamla graduated from college, obtained his business license, and then received a publishing license. It was, according to officials, the first publishing license they had ever awarded in Luang Prabang Province, and required extra research for them to learn to how to do it. (It is Lao custom to identify people only by first names, even in formal situations. This article uses that first-name convention for people living in Laos, and last names for people living where that usage is customary.)
caption: Khamla Panyasouk of Big Brother Mouse reads to children
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