we shall see. time will tell, all of those latitudes. so i think nick has rejoined us, i want to thank you, eric, dear friend, for writing this book. it's wonderful, i cannot emphasize how many stories we were able to get there but they are there and wonderful and it reminds you that history is full of heroes who stood up against real oppression to keep freedom of speech going andp to me, that's the great take away. >> a really great villain as well. [laughter] >> henry the eighth, the guy who married people alive but anyway, for the good stories. thank you for writing it and thank you for being with us today. nick. >> absolutely. everybody, the book>> is dangers

i guess the author tonight was eric, thank you again, judy, for being in conversation, a lovely conversation. we've had some excellent questions in check. to everybody who showed up. it was an interesting discussion in their, very entertaining. thank you very much, glad to be part of it. if you would like to purchase the book, book passage.com. ... your doorstep. in addition to that if your local bookstore we will not begrudge you if you purchase from them. we love all venues all across the country but if you'd like to purchase from us we'd be happy to have you. again if you enjoy the conversation tonight please subscribe to the youtube channel. it's completely free and if you enjoy the conversation you can

click the thumbs-up button. it helps the algorithm if you recommend our video is a little bit faster to everybody else. thank you again one last time for showing up. thanks again we had a great time. want to wave goodbye to everybody. thank you for coming we hope to see you all very soon. >> building infrastructure, upgrading technology, and powering opportunity and in communities big and small.

a charter is connecting us. you are watching booktv on c-span2. if you are of a certain age, you have one of these on your shelves, a dictionary, and you've probably lookedd up words in it throughout your lifetime. but if you are a little bit younger, chances are you've done it digitally. well, mary french is trying to change that. she is the founder and director of something called the dictionary project. what are you trying to do? >> we want everyone to enjoy the benefits of owning a dictionary and we try to give them out when they are in the third grade so that they get into the habit of looking at words, spell them correctly and understand the meanings the words have and

appreciate average language. >> what is the importance to you of having this physical book rather than just typing it in your phone? >> it is an early tool for learning. i've got the technology. it's where the words come from so it's what holds us together as a society and as a world how we communicate. you have to be able to use different tools to access the information and it's primarily the age that we distribute these to children in school. they are more apt to learn from a book than a computer and

electronic device. it's more accessible to them and plus they own it so it benefits them in many different ways and has a lot of information. >> what is the importance of the third grade in this case? >> when i started this i taught fourth grade, fifth grade, everything. i found third grade was the optimal age because at that point, they are learning to read and then reading to learn. if you can encourage children and give them this tool, they have such an advantage in terms of expanding their education so it helps throughout their career. >> where did the idea for the

dictionary project come from? >> she was the woman that dropped out of school in the tenth grade and she understood the limits of her ability to understand the world around her. when she was working as a crossing guard in savannah at the martin luther king exit off of 95, she saw the kids were not bringing books back and forth to school. she asked them why and she bought everybody a dictionary and told them to use it to help them because she wants there life opportunities to be i guess diminished because they didn't

have a large vocabulary so she stamped in each book the mind is a terrible thing to waste. she used her own money from cleaning houses. i got to know her and then she died in 2000 from breast cancer. she h has had a huge impact on people and it was a great idea to make sure that everybody has a dictionary. >> since 1995 when you founded the dictionary project along with french, how many dictionaries have gone out to children? >> 33,700,000. >> how do you get them out there? >> great organizations. the project started out with

writing grants and then i spoke to different organizations about this idea because they were ueintrigued with the idea of the dictionary and of course literacy is so important to keep people learning new words and basically becoming ill literatec in school. so they took it on as a literacy project. they have to havee a literacy program that they implement, and this was an easy program to do and you get the best bang for your buck. you can reach people for the amount of money that it costs and it has a long-term impact. i've been doing this for 25

years. they say they still have their dictionary and they know where it k is. they appreciate the gift so for two or three dollars, they've had an amazing impact on their lives every one has this, this dictionary belongs to, and you can write your name right there. why are there eight different versions? go green is one in the dictionary, is students dictionary, dictionary thesaurus. the students dictionary and animal does that. why are so many different

versions? >> when i first started this, i was handing out a book that i found at the dollar store and a lot of the teachers didn't like it because it didn't have the words they were looking for. some had to sample sentences and they thought the sample sentences were too violent so we started looking at other options fored dictionaries and i asked merriam-webster to create a boos for this program, so i created my own for the students to go green. i believe we need to do more to protect animals in our world

this was created by some students who were available i think there were 14nk and 16. >> one of the things here you have each state listed. i opened this and then you have the population and do some of the stats about the states but at the bottom it is zoo locations and you have this listed there at the top. can anyone contribute to the dictionary project? how do they do so? >> we have a project. they can call our office. we answer the phone and any way

that you want to contribute or participate, we have thousands of people who volunteer their time. they do many things. this is just one thing that they do and very grateful for all that they are doing. >> can anyone get the dictionary? >> we get phone calls every day but i send them letters and they ask. there are grandmothers that want to give it to their grandchildren. we have all kinds of people that want to give the dictionaries. we are happy to help, but anybody that wants a dictionary, we will make sure they