Thursday 2 August 2012

Vintage Classic launches World Of Stories Website For Young Bookworms

I am extremely excited about the launch of the World of Stories Website, but I will pass you over to the Vintage Team as they can tell you so much more about it than I can. 


Vintage Classics, an imprint of The Random House Group, today unveils World of Stories – a free, fun, safe interactive website for children – to accompany the launch of the new Vintage Children’s Classics series and inspire and nurture a life-long love of reading.
Vintage Classics commissioned extensive independent research into children’s reading habits today to launch the series. The research highlighted that children are accustomed to stories existing in more than one format and would be keen to extend their enjoyment of a favourite story or character through a website. 70% of children surveyed said that additional information about the characters would make them more likely to read a classic and 61% wanted more information about the era in which the book was set, along with examples of further reading. Responding to this insight, Vintage Classics has created the World of Stories website. The site was developed with Youniverse – an integrated design agency working in the publishing and entertainment sectors. World of Stories enables children to find out more about the Vintage Children’s Classics books by entering six magical worlds: The Great Outdoors; Love and Friendship; Time Travel; World of Weird; Secrets and Spies; and Adventure. By exploring these animated, sound-filled landscapes, children can discover hidden content including quizzes, wallpapers, colouring sheets, interesting facts about the books and things to make and do.


The site also contains a ‘Magic 8 Ball’ to help children decide what to read next, a Big Game Zone, a News Section and a Gallery for children’s artwork.
By signing in to the site, children can create their own avatar, post reviews and enter an exclusive drawing competition to win a set of the 30 launch titles in the Vintage Children’s Classics series, delivered in a specially designed treasure chest.
Whilst under development, Youniverse independently tested the site on a group of 5 – 13 year olds. The children’s feedback was unanimously positive – all declared it to be the best book site they had ever seen, commenting that the different worlds were ‘cool’ and ‘clever’ and that they liked having guidance on what books to read next. All of the children found the site easy to navigate on their own, with the majority revisiting the ‘areas’ that they liked the most.
Vintage Classics Editorial Director Laura Hassan adds: ‘The site is as whizzy, illuminating and engaging as we could have dreamed of and my only disappointment is that the T&Cs forbid us from entering the competition to win the treasure chest of books. I can’t wait to share the site with all of the children I know. It is such fun.’

The launch of the Vintage Children’s Classics series and World of Stories website is supported by a high-profile marketing and publicity campaign and extensive support from the book trade. Vintage has also teamed up with The Reading Agency to create a classics-themed activity ‘Chatterpack’ for nationwide ‘Chatterbooks’ reading groups to help teachers, librarians and parents inspire children to engage with books and reading. The launch will also be accompanied by a series of family-friendly events throughout the summer, including a Vintage Children’s Classics Family Fete with Foyles on the South Bank, storytelling sessions at Heathrow airport and activities at the Storybox tent at the Edinburgh International Book Festival. For more information about the launch visit www.vintage-books.co.uk/classics/worldofstories

Now I spent a lovely hour playing on the new website this morning with my girls and I can tell you it is well worth the visit. I loved exploring all the lands and I felt like I had stepped into my very own Vintage theme park. My girls were happily searching through the books as well as visiting the writer's block. I have to say well done to the team at Vintage Books for creating a fabulous site. 

To find out more about World Of Stories:

Website: www.worldofstories.co.uk
Twitter: @AWorldofStories


1 comment:

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