Big Bad Wolf: Buy a book and promote English
The Big Bad Wolf Book Sale returns to Bangkok from August 10 to 20 with 24-hour shopping at Impact Hall 9. There’ll be more than three million titles available, with many prices discounted by up to 80 per cent.
Word worms can find English best-sellers, fiction and non-fiction, romances, thrillers, business guides, art and design treatises, cookbooks and much more. The children’s attractions range from classic fairytales to interactive adventures.
If you have specific titles in mind, be the first to grab them by participating in giveaways on Facebook (bbwbooksthailand) and Instagram (@bigbadwolfbooks_th). You can win a pass to Preview Day on August 9 and have first crack at all the books in the sale.
“This is the third year in Bangkok for Big Bad Wolf and every year it just gets better,” says organiser Surachet Worawongwasu.
“The past two years we noticed more and more Thais hunting for their favourite books. This year there are many new titles by popular authors and we hope to see more families and people from the outskirts of Bangkok.”
English literacy is an issue for Thailand. The 2017 EF English Proficiency Index ranked the Kingdom 53rd among 80 countries.
“The English language is the connector used in commerce, diplomacy, education and science,” Surachet points out. “Thailand has more recently become one of the fastest-developing countries on the EF index, and with the hunger for books we’ve seen at the Big Bad Wolf Book Sale, we hope to see continued improvement.”
To spur that improvement along, he’ll donate books to the Hope Foundation in Thailand through a Red Readerhood Programme, benefitting underprivileged communities. (“Readership” would be the correct English, but that would spoil the Little Red Riding Hood allusion.)
Anyone wishing to help out can buy a book at the Red Readerhood corner at the sale and drop it in a designated collection bin to be donated to a good cause.
Big Bad Wolf sales are also held in Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta, Manila, Cebu, Surabaya and Colombo, distributing new Englishlanguage books to millions at affordable prices.
More than three million people visit the sales every year and purchase in excess of 15 million titles, helping to create a regionwide love of reading that the organisers believe will be reflected in literacy rates.
