Big Sister Mouse is our new school in the countryside, on the outskirts of Luang Prabang. Children love having visitors and in this picture, they get practice with both math and English as they play the Happy Snake game. Each player gets three cards. If they can add or subtract them to get the designated goal for that road, they move their marker ahead toward the snake's head.

If you're visiting Luang Prabang, please join us for a day at Big Sister Mouse. You'll have fun while also helping both young adults and smaller children with their education. More about Volunteering.

What will your donation do?

There are many worthwhile organizations that you can support with your donation. Here are some things we'd like you to know about Big Brother Mouse.

* Big Brother Mouse is a 100% Lao-owned and -staffed project. Sasha Alyson, the retired American publisher who acts as a full-time advisor, is an unpaid volunteer. All paid staff are Lao people. (The mouse works for free.) We keep overhead low, and much of our budget goes right to the printer.

* The International Board on Books for Young People selected Big Brother Mouse as one of two winners of the 2016 IBBY-Asahi Reading Promotion Award. This is given every two years, based on nominations made by IBBY members in 75 chapters worldwide. We are very honored and proud, and it will give us even more motivation to get our "Sustained Silent Reading" program into schools throughout Laos. Several of us will traveled to the IBBY International Congress in Auckland, to receive the award.

Left to right: Sasha Alyson, Khamla Panyasouk, and Bill Clinton, as the former president presented a special recognition to Big Brother Mouse at the Clinton Global Initiative meeting in Hong Kong.

* Bill Clinton thought we're important work in the field of literacy. At the first meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative in Asia, Big Brother Mouse was one of three projects in Asia selected for special recognition at the opening plenary session. Bill Clinton made a presentation to Khamla Panyasouk and Sasha Alyson and spoke about the project.

* The Lonely Planet guidebook thinks we're doing a good job. If you're coming here you may have that guidebook, and you can see for yourself.

The cover of Stay Another Day

* Visitors like what they see. "This is one of those rare experiences that travellers search for but often miss on the mass tourist routes," writes Jo on Trip Advisor. On a blog, a visitor calls Big Brother Mouse "one of the best projects I've experienced in my time in SE Asia - many tried hard but didn't really deliver. This delivers!" Just search for "Big Brother Mouse, Laos" to see what others say.

We have only a limited ability to correspond in English but a visitor who spent several days at our school has said he'd be happy to answer questions from people thinking of a visit. You may email Ertan: laroj2000 at yahoo.com.au (Just replace the word at with the symbol.) Please understand that he is not in Laos, he does not work here, and can only answer questions based on his experience as a visitor.

* Trip Adviser agrees; take a look at their site.

* Many newspapers and magazines have written about us. Here's a story in the Christian Science Monitor.

See a short video: Mark Gilchrist featured our publishing, school, and English practice on his show "On This Planet Earth." You can see it as a 7 minute video on Youtube