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Black Friday has been historically the busiest shopping day of the year here in the U.S. However, this one-day celebration has pretty much expanded into a full-blown extended sale that often starts before Thanksgiving and goes until Cyber Monday. Let’s get ready to save! …Or spend a lot of money. Either one. Black Friday Tips ... Read more

The post Anime & Manga Deals – Black Friday Countdown appeared first on Organization Anti-Social Geniuses.

Black Friday may be next week, but a lot of good sales are already active! Before I continue, with the holiday shopping experience in full swing, here are a few tips I have for you: Compare prices. One store’s “sale” price may be higher than another store’s. The major stores will also price-match each other, ... Read more

The post Anime & Manga Deals: Pre-Black Friday Edition appeared first on Organization Anti-Social Geniuses.

It’s Halloween, so while you’re dressed up in your awesome cosplay, why not get new anime and manga to inspire your next costume? Amazon Amazon offers free shipping with Prime or on $35+. Dragon Ball Z Season 9 [Blu-ray] – $19.99 Fullmetal Alchemist: Complete Collection [Blu-ray] – $32.27 Is It Wrong to Try to Pick ... Read more

The post Anime & Manga Deals Roundup – Halloween Edition appeared first on Organization Anti-Social Geniuses.

How about some anime and manga discounts to celebrate all the exciting news and events at New York Comic Con? Amazon Amazon has got every digital volume of Naruto on sale. The first five volumes are available for $1.99 each, and the rest of the series is on sale for $3.35 or $4.49 a volume. ... Read more

The post Anime & Manga Deals Roundup: New York Comic Con Edition appeared first on Organization Anti-Social Geniuses.

  Force Friday is here! A brand new holiday established to make people line up and buy toys.  If you can find one, Hasbro’s magnetic BB-8 droid is probably the most desired. My inbox tells me that you can also buy many toys at Target. An exclusive, remote controlled BB-8 droid from Hasbro that moves and sounds just […]

When children see their lives reflected in the books they read they become more enthusiastic readers. Their educational outcomes improve. They succeed in school and in life.

But few books actually reflect the cultures and circumstances of the kids First Book serves, all of whom live in low-income households and many of whom are of minority backgrounds. In fact, a mere 11 percent of 3,500 children’s books reviewed by Cooperative Children’s Book Center this year are about people of color.

This is the reason we created the Stories for All Project^TM – the only market-driven solution to increase diverse voices and promote inclusivity in children’s literature.

Today, we’re proud to share our latest news with you: With support from Target, KPMG and Jet Blue Airways, First Book is making 60,000 copies of outstanding children’s titles featuring diverse characters and storylines available for the first time ever in affordable trade paperback format, to fuel learning and educational equity.

We chose these titles from hundreds submitted by publishers with input from the 175,000 educators and program leaders we serve. By aggregating the demand and purchasing power of this educator community, we have become the first organization to create a viable and vibrant market for books that reflect race, ability, sexual orientation and family structure in our ever-diversifying world.

Each of our selections contributes unique perspectives underrepresented in children’s literature while remaining relatable to all readers. As part of this current effort, First Book is thrilled to make available two titles by new picture book authors:

• “Niño Wrestles the World” written and illustrated by Yuyi Morales
• “And Tango Makes Three” written by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell and illustrated by Henry Cole
• “Tiger in My Soup” written by Kashmira Sheth and illustrated by Jeffrey Ebbeler
• “Boats for Papa” written and illustrated by new author/illustrator Jessixa Bagley
• “Emmanuel’s Dream: The True Story of Emmanuel Ofosu Yeboah,” written by first-time children’s author Laurie Ann Thompson and illustrated by Sean Qualls,
• “Knock Knock: My Dad’s Dream for Me,” written by Daniel Beaty and illustrated by Bryan Collier

Copies of all six titles will be available through the First Book Marketplace.  The first three titles are also available for the first time in paperback format on Target.com and at Target stores nationwide.

Every day, in communities around the country and around the world, we see the critical need to further our human understanding and embrace the gifts and experience each of us brings. The Stories for All Project and promotes understanding, empathy and inclusivity with stories that can help all children see and celebrate their differences and similarities.

The post The Stories for All Project: 60,000 New Books to Increase Diversity, Promote Inclusivity appeared first on First Book Blog.

Target has always been one of First Book’s most stalwart supporters. Their support for education in the United States is comprehensive and long-lasting.

Now they’ve embarked on an impressively gigantic new effort: $5 million for U.S. schools as part of their ‘$1 Billion for Education’ campaign. The giving campaign includes $2.5 million in grants for in-need schools and another $2.5 million in Target gift cards that local schools can use to pay for badly-needed back-to-school supplies.

If you want YOUR neighborhood school to win up to $10,000 in Target gift cards, vote for them on Target’s Facebook page. And if you work with kids at a Title I school, be sure to sign up with First Book to hear about grant opportunities like this one in the future!

Target has always been one of First Book’s most stalwart supporters. Their support for education in the United States is comprehensive and long-lasting.

Now they’ve embarked on an impressively gigantic new effort: $5 million for U.S. schools as part of their ‘$1 Billion for Education’ campaign. The giving campaign includes $2.5 million in grants for in-need schools and another $2.5 million in Target gift cards that local schools can use to pay for badly-needed back-to-school supplies.

If you want YOUR neighborhood school to win up to $10,000 in Target gift cards, vote for them on Target’s Facebook page. And if you work with kids at a Title I school, be sure to sign up with First Book to hear about grant opportunities like this one in the future!

Today we bring you another installment of Youth Media Movers and Shakers. We’ve culled through industry publications looking for the recent executive placements we think you should know about. If you have executive news that you want us to... Read the rest of this post

Here’s a roundup of some of the best ways that brands are using Facebook’s new Open Graph (to encourage their fans to share their brand interactions on the site. We’re big fans of Ticketmaster’s mashup with Spotify’s... Read the rest of this post

DVD sales continue to tank (while household spending on streaming video services, such as Netflix, and DVD rentals from Kiosks, such as Redbox, continues to rise. Much of this trend is driven by Millennials who are less concerned with owning media... Read the rest of this post

Not sure what to get that student going away to college? (Now Target, as part of a big digital push, is allowing students to create a care package wish list that they can share with friends and family via Facebook or email. The retailer will also be... Read the rest of this post

Tuesday marks the first day of summer, and to celebrate their annual Day of Action, the United Way will be marshaling an army of volunteers to assemble summer reading backpacks for 50,000 elementary school kids from low-income communities.

First Book is proud to be a part of this amazing event, and we’re bringing our favorite thing to the party – books.
Every backpack will contain three brand-new books that the children who receive them will be able to keep. Many children from low-income families have no books of their own at home, so we’re grateful to have the opportunity to change that for so many kids.

If you’re out of school for the summer, or you’re able to take the day off work, we’d love to see you! Volunteers are welcome. Go online to learn more and register.

See you on the mall!

Lady Gaga sticks to her guns (by dissolving her exclusive relationship with Target. The retailer was set to release an exclusive deluxe edition of the singer’s “Born This Way” album, but the agreement was dissolved because Target... Read the rest of this post

Togetherville is now (part of the House of Mouse; Disney snagged the tween social networking site for an undisclosed sum. In other social networking news, "American Idol" is incorporating voting via Facebook; not to be outdone, Simon Cowell's "X... Read the rest of this post

Fallen (Guitar) Hero (Activision pulls the plug on its "Guitar Hero" franchise, canceling the release of the sixth edition of the game. PSFK, via the Guardian, offers theories for why the billion-dollar franchise failed: selling out and lack of... Read the rest of this post

Jamie Oliver's "Food Revolution" (is halted as the superintendent of the LA School District shuts down filming of the second season because he insists the schools be portrayed in a positive light. Oliver may be let back into schools if he hands over... Read the rest of this post

Looking back to the Back to School shopping season of 2010, we can learn a few key lessons from retailers, whether we sell jeans, or not … 1. Forced 2B Frugal: No one wakes up in the morning wishing for less. While our 'wants' will always... Read the rest of this post

A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of visiting Washington, DC’s Wheatley Elementary School as part of Target’s new initiative, Read With MeSM. I was particularly excited to attend this event as the principal, Scott Cartland, was the former principal of my children’s school, Janney Elementary.  Two years ago, he left Janney Elementary to turn the then-failing schools of Webb and Wheatley into a place where children could excel in the classroom and beyond.

Students and their new books at Wheatley Education Campus

That first year I volunteered by teaching creative writing to a small group of seventh graders.  At that time, the school felt more like a prison than a school; a dilapidated building echoing with the sound of disruptive students. The kids I taught, though, were pretty amazing and Scott Cartland had the capacity to see potential in all of his students.  He also had the leadership skills to set goals, expectations, traditions and opportunities in a place where, formerly, there had been none.  Reading scores rose steadily, and “respect” became the school’s guiding rule.  Meanwhile, the District of Columbia Public Schools transformed another building and moved into the beautiful new space.

Target and First Book staff at Wheatley Education Campus

Our celebration at Wheatley was beautiful for so many reasons:  all the gorgeous kids, excited about their new books (one kid yelled “Flat Stanley!  Yesssss!!!”), all the proud and dedicated teachers and staff, all the helpful volunteers, and First Book and Target working together to provide new books to deserving children – it felt like magic. But I was particularly struck by how far this one school has come from where it was, and how much farther these kids will go thanks to caring, involved people like Scott Cartland, Target, and a LOT of great books.

We are thrilled to announce that First Book is donating one million new books to elementary school students across the country in celebration of the launch of Target Read With Me^SM.

When Target was looking for a partner to help make this unprecedented book distribution possible, they came to First Book and together we are distributing new books to schools in all 50 states and the District of Columbia!  As you read this, thousands of schools across the country are receiving their part of the one million book distribution.  We’ve been so excited to share this announcement with you, but our lips have been sealed until now.

Target Read With Me^SM celebrates Target’s continued commitment to reading and education and calls upon parents and caring adults to pledge to read with a child by visiting www.target.com/reading or by texting READ to TARGET (827438). Once one million pledges have been received, Target will donate an additional one million books, for a total donation of two million books across the country.

Together, First Book and Target are working to give students a brighter future by eliminating the key barrier to literacy – access to books.

To learn more about Read With Me^SM and to make your pledge, please visit www.target.com/reading.  To register your school or program with First Book to gain access to free and low-cost books, please visit www.firstbook.org/register.

Check back soon for stories and testimonials from parents, students and educators who have received books from this exciting distribution!

Kmart launches Stylesip (a social hub for teen girls to "share their thoughts on trends, entertainment, music and gossip." Also Andrew Zoyer of Steve Madden previews the brand's mobile push with interesting insight on branded apps vs. mobile sites)... Read the rest of this post

By Dennis Baron

Apparently an English professor was ejected from a Starbucks on Manhattan’s Upper West Side for – she claims – not deploying Starbucks’ mandatory corporate-speak. The story immediately lit up the internet, turning her into an instant celebrity. Just as Steven Slater, the JetBlue flight attendant who couldn’t take it anymore, became the heroic employee who finally bucked the system when he cursed out nasty passengers over the intercom and deployed the emergency slide to make his escape, Lynne Rosenthal was the customer who cared so much about good English that she finally stood up to the coffee giant and got run off the premises by New York’s finest for her troubles. Well, at least that’s what she says happened.

According to the New York Post, Rosenthal, who teaches at Mercy College and has an English Ph.D. from Columbia, ordered a multigrain bagel at Starbucks but “became enraged when the barista at the franchise” asked, “Do you want butter or cheese?” She continued, “I refused to say ‘without butter or cheese.’ When you go to Burger King, you don’t have to list the six things you don’t want. Linguistically, it’s stupid, and I’m a stickler for correct English.” When she refused to answer, she claims that she was told, “You’re not going to get anything unless you say butter or cheese!” And then the cops came.

Stickler for good English she may be, but management countered that the customer then made a scene and hurled obscenities at the barista, and according to the Post, police who were called to the scene insist that no one was ejected from the coffee shop.

I too am a professor of English, and I too hate the corporate speak of “tall, grande, venti” that has invaded our discourse. But highly-paid consultants, not minimum-wage coffee slingers, created those terms (you won’t find a grande or a venti in Italian coffee bars). Consultants also told “Starbuck’s” to omit the apostrophe from its corporate name and to call its workers baristas, not coffee-jerks.

My son was a barista (should that be baristo?) at Borders (also no apostrophe, though McDonald’s keeps the symbol, mostly) one summer, and many of my students work in restaurants, bars, and chain retail stores. The language that employees of the big chains use on the job is carefully scripted and choreographed by market researchers, who insist that employees speak certain words and phrases, while others are forbidden, because they think that’s what moves “product.” Scripts even tell workers how and where and when to move and what expression to paste on their faces. Employees who go off-script and use their own words risk demerits, or worse, if they’re caught by managers, grouchy customers, or the ubiquitous secret shoppers who ride the franchise circuit looking for infractions.

I’m no fan of this corporate scripting. Calling customers “guests” and employees “associates” doesn’t mean I can treat Target like a friend’s living room or that the clerks who work there are anything but low-level employees who associate with one another, not with corporate vice presidents. I don’t think this kind of language-enforcement increases sales or

How is it August?! I hope that everyone has been enjoying their summers! Here is the piece that I created for Target's summer event at St. Jude.

Comic-Con predictions (New York Magazine ranks the post-preview buzz around upcoming "tent-pole" releases with 'Scott Pilgrim' named biggest winner and a lukewarm reception to the "Green Hornet" trailer spelling trouble ahead. More on what went... Read the rest of this post