BOOK lovers and “wolfies” of all ages expressed joy and thrill over the Big Bad Wolf Book Sale happening 24 hours a day from July 12 to 22, 2019 at the LausGroup Event Centre in the City of San Fernando, Pampanga.
On VIP Day on Thursday and opening day on Friday, thousands of students, employees, families, titos and titas and even lolos and lolas from morning ‘til the wee hours of the evening pored over close to a million brand new English book titles ranging from best-sellers, young adult fiction, romance, science fiction, crime thriller, business, self-help, architecture, design, history, biographies, collectibles, cooking, children’s fiction, activity books, and more at the world’s biggest sale which makes its Pampanga leg for the very first time.
Thrilling, the wolfies told SunStar Pampanga, as books are offered at incredible slash-off rates from 50 percent to 90 percent and really exciting as the Big Bad Wolf Book Sale introduced six new Magic Book or augmented reality (AR) titles for a total of 12 titles that are perfect for readers who wish to see their children’s books come to life and tinker with their imagination and creativity with popular stories like Little Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, Old Macdonald, and the Wheels on The Bus.
Eight-year-old Clarisse Manuel from Cabanatuan City in nearby Nueva Ecija was among the first to call dibs on the AR books, choosing for herself Old Macdonald and Little Red Riding Hood.
“I asked my sister to buy them for me because I love books and fairy tale stories. I told her ‘please, please buy them for me.’ Then she bought me coloring books, too. I’m excited to read them already,” she said.
Ben Nacpil, 52, from Meycauyan, Bulacan came with his family, along with his kids’ grandparents, uncles and aunts, with what he said was “for the love of reading.”
“The whole clan is here looking for the books they want. My parents are looking for books on religion as they are both church workers. My kids’ titas and titos tagged along to find their ‘treasures’ and really want to teach their children too, the love for reading and wonder of books. With such a huge variety of books to choose from at low prices, the Big Bad Wolf is really great!” he said.
Groups of high school and college students from across Pampanga also joined the crowd in browsing over the packs of books, taking selfies and groufies.
“We were just curious about Big Bad Wolf. But then we were able to win some VIP passes and decided to go here after class. This is an awesome discovery because there is so much to enjoy reading even if you just have a meager budget, but fits to what we like. What we’ll do is save some of our baon and come back for the books we want,” they said.
A librarian, who requested not to be named, shared that the officials at the school she works for requested her to check on the Big Bad Wolf book sale: “I was asked to check on what we could add to our library shelves that will interest our students and support our teachers teaching reading and literature. Here you see, I came out with a long list of incredibly-priced books that we will get for the school.”
Surprising and amusing, were Kai Del Mundo and her band of millennials who were wheeling in their pushcart loaded with AR books as they waited in line at the counter.
“Of course we’re wolfies, too. Techie we are but book lovers we are at the same time. Yeah, we’re checking out this AR books we heard are cool. And check these premium finds: we got DC Marvel, Batman, Superman, Game of Thrones, Fashion and Design, Origami and these very nice tin sets and best seller book sets. Bid bad wolves we are!” she exclaimed.
Seeing the success of the first days of the sale, Big Bad Wolf founder Jacqueline Ng expressed happiness over the initial turnout which is expected to peak at hundreds of thousands.
“We are really very happy about this because this is what we really want - to give equal opportunity for every child and change the world one book at a time. Thank you so much for coming over and sharing with us the Big Bad Wolf experience,” she said. (JTD)