MORE than a million books of over 20,000 titles will be displayed on the Big Bad Wolf (BBW) first-ever Davao leg from November 23 to December 2 at The Tent, Azuela Cove.
After having been in Manila and Cebu, the 24-hour book sale will finally be here in Davao City with different genres of books at 50 to 90 percent discounts. There will be a variety of books from novels, science fictions, general fiction, young adult books, business books, and architecture to story books, interactive books, and augmented reality books.
According to BBW founder Jacqueline Ng, she and her husband Andrew Yap founded the book sale in 2009 with the primary objective of making books accessible to everyone and to encourage people of all ages to appreciate the art of affordable and accessible reading.
“Big Bad Wolf started from love of each other and love of what we do,” said Ng who also said that they were happy with how the Filipinos received BBW in Manila and Cebu.
“After witnessing how excited people in the Philippines are when it comes to books at our sales in Manila and Cebu, we decided that we must bring the sale to Davao, which readers have enthusiastically requested. We are happy to be coming to Davao,” Ng said in a statement.
The book sale will charge no entrance fee and will be open to anyone anytime until December 2. Ng said that based on previous BBW sales in Manila and Cebu, the best time to go to the venue when there are less people is from 2 a.m. or 3 a.m. until around 9 a.m., however it would also be a tricky and a wise decision to go on a very early morning of Monday when everyone else is still lazy to get up early.
Most of the books in BBW were sourced from United Kingdom and the United States. Ng said, depending on the venue capacity and the number of books displayed, their budget for a single BBW run plays at around US$3 million to US$5 million. In 2017 alone, she said 10 million books were sold by BBW.
Aside from providing affordable books to booklovers in the Philippines, BBW also partnered with Gawad Kalinga (GK) Foundation. A portion of the sales will go to the GK communities. Last Monday, November 5, in a press conference at Union Market, Azuela Cove, BBW turned over P5 million to Luis Oquiñena, GK Executive Director, for the benefit of the community.
“We are glad for the enthusiasm for reading books despite ebooks. Big Bad Wolf and Gawad Kalinga share the same advocacies of inspiring love for books and increasing readership,” said Oquiñena. Books will also be donated to the communities through the Red Readerhood Programme of GK.
BBW has toured across cities in Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, and United Arab Emirates.