Big Universe
Big Universe® is an online community where kids, parents, teachers, publishers, authors, illustrators, librarians, and others come together to explore the exciting world of online children's books. It offers hundreds of fiction and non-fiction children's books readable directly on its website, a self-publishing tool to create and publish children's books, blogs on relevant topics, and more.
Relevance to OLPC
While the content on the site is copyrighted and cannot be redistributed, it may be useful as a source of reading content, provided the students have relatively high-bandwidth connections. It is unknown how well the site performs in the XO's browser; it requires Flash to access the menus, and it opens the stories in new windows.
Content creators may find the blogs useful as a source of ideas, although a cursory survey reveals that they are mostly about existing children's books and publishing, not general authoring advice. The "make your own book" section is unlikely to be useful to OLPC content creators, as it relies on clip art that cannot be redistributed.
