Blending Books and the Web

Many children's publishers offer games and activities related to their books on their Web sites to promote them. But no other major children's publisher goes as far as Winslow Press to integrate its books and its Web site. For example, when Winslow launched its new paperback series, the Hourglass Adventures, it launched a Web site (www.winslowpress.com/newsite/rrita/ RR_root1) to go with it. To make sure young readers went to it, Winslow placed invitations to visit the site throughout the first two books in the series, Rosemary Meets Rosemarie and Rosemary in Paris. Readers will find at the Hourglass Adventures site activities based on the stories, such as a "costume shop" that lets you dress Rosemary in 19th-century fashions.

In another Winslow series, Dear Mr. President, fictitious young people write letters to the presidents of different periods in American history and receive replies from those presidents that illuminate the times and cultures of those periods. The Web site for the series (www.winslowpress.com/dearmrpresident) contains letters real kids have written to President Bush (left) as well as supplemental information about the presidents and issues they faced, useful to any teacher or student. Throughout the books, readers are invited to visit the site. For example, the book on Thomas Jefferson mentions the duel in which Aaron Burr killed Alexander Hamilton; the Web site tells the story of the duel and links to two well-regarded sites outside the Winslow site about Burr and the duel.

Winslow considers a big Web presence essential for each of its titles. "We're looking for ways to blend the reading and the Internet experience," says Winslow CEO Diane Kessenich. More than that, she says, she wants to keep books relevant to kids who live their lives in a world of electronics. "We're rethinking how the reading experience can go forward in an environment that includes technology," she says.

The Web sites contain some glitches. The books refer readers searching for specific activities or bits of information simply to "winslowpress.com ." The readers must then figure out how to make their way from the Winslow home page to a page often deep within the publisher's site. Readers with slow Net connections will also wait for the Hourglass Adventures site to load before they can reach the activities mentioned in the books. Brett Clark, Winslow's executive vice president and chief creative officer, says that Winslow wants readers to enter the site "through the front door"—which can be awkward when students and teachers aren't Web-savvy. Clark says that the next incarnation of the Winslow site, due January 2002, will let users zip to the book site they wish to visit more easily.

Ronnie Feder, head of social studies for Community School District #25 in Flushing, NY, used the Dear Mr. President site with fifth- and eighth-grade students last school year as part of a unit on participation in national affairs and liked it very much. Inspired by the example of the boy in the series who writes to Theodore Roosevelt, the Flushing students wrote letters to the editors of the Time for Kids magazine site on issues affecting the nation as part of the unit. "It showed them that kids can have a voice," Feder says, and the students were pleased to see their opinions posted online. But because many of the district's Net connections were slow and the teachers' Web skills uneven, Feder had CD-ROMs burned containing the entire Dear Mr. President site and its support sites to make it easier for everyone to navigate.

Winslow is aware of the problems of slow connections and the sometimes low skill levels of teachers and kids, but "our goal from the beginning," says Kessenich, "was a thoughtful integration of technology and the book." She says that improving the site is a priority, and that Winslow wants to be "more than just a press."