Yoto and HarperCollins team up to bring Judith Kerr’s Best-loved Mog Character to new platform
London, UK, October 29th, 2018 — Yoto and HarperCollins Children’s Books are collaborating to bring everyone’s favourite family cat, Judith Kerr’s Mog, to young readers through Yoto’s clever speaker technology.
Mog is one of the world’s best-loved children’s characters, appearing in twenty bestselling books to date, and in 2020 will celebrate fifty years since she first appeared in the classic picture book Mog The Forgetful Cat. The marvellous Mog continues to capture hearts and has currently sold over five million books worldwide to date.
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Yoto is a smart audio speaker that was created to maximise children’s development skills without building reliance on screen time and allows children to unlock a carefully curated world of music, stories and learning via smart NFC cards. Suitable for pre-school children and inspired by Montessori principles, Yoto offers youngsters the opportunity to build independence over what they listen to or play.
HarperCollins Children’s Books and Yoto will create a series of Mog Yoto cards for use with the Yoto clever speaker. The first card, Mog and the Baby, will be included with every Yoto device as part of the “Yoto Starter Pack”.
Ann-Janine Murtagh, Executive Publisher of HarperCollins Children’s Books says “We are delighted to be working with Yoto to offer children an innovative new way to share in the magic of words and pictures and the joy of listening to a story. Judith Kerr’s Mog has been loved by generations of children and we welcome the opportunity to work with Yoto to introduce children of the future to the stories with this exciting new platform which uses innovative technology to inspire the imagination and build a love of reading and books.”
As CEO/Co-Founder Ben Drury says “We are all thrilled to be working with HarperCollins. Technology is increasingly part of all our lives, which is why we’ve created a product especially for kids that will use technology to inspire a love of books. Stories make imaginations grow, and to be able to support that growth with audio-based experiences built on children’s classics from HarperCollins is amazing”
Yoto was successfully funded on Kickstarter in December 2017 and was the recipient of a Red Dot Product Design award in 2018. Yoto will be on sale and shipping in November 2018.
About Yoto:
Yoto is designed entirely by a team of experienced entrepreneurs and parents who started thinking about what kids need to maximise development skills without screen time. Yoto uses technology to enhance the way in which young children access and interact with content.
Founded by four successful entrepreneurs from the worlds of music, technology, design and marketing, Yoto allows children to unlock a carefully curated world of music, stories and learning via interactive cards which connect to a safe, secure world of audio content.
Yoto, which was launched on Kickstarter in November 2017, reaching its funding target after only 5 days and in 2018 won a prestigious Red Dot Product Design award. Suitable for pre-school children and inspired by Montessori principles, Yoto offers youngsters the opportunity to build independence over what they listen to or play.
About HarperCollins Children’s Books:
HarperCollins Children’s Books, unprecedented three times winner of Children’s Publisher of the Year (2014, 2015, 2016), is one of the leading publishers of children’s books, recognised for nurturing new talent as well as boasting a reputable list of established bestselling authors. Respected worldwide for its tradition of publishing quality, award-winning books for young readers, HarperCollins is home to many children’s classics, including The Chronicles of Narnia, the Paddington stories, The Cat in the Hat and The Tiger Who Came to Tea, and to some of the biggest names in children’s literature past and present, including David Walliams, Judith Kerr, David Baddiel, Lauren Child, Oliver Jeffers and Michael Morpurgo.
HarperCollins UK is a division of HarperCollins Publishers, the second-largest consumer book publisher in the world, with operations in eighteen countries. With 200 years of history and more than 120 unique imprints around the world, HarperCollins publishes approximately 10,000 new books every year, in seventeen languages, and has a print and digital catalogue of more than 200,000 titles. Writing across dozens of genres, HarperCollins authors include winners of the Nobel Prize, the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, the Newbery and Caldecott Medals and the Man Booker Prize. HarperCollins UK has offices in London, Glasgow and Honley, and can be found online at www.harpercollins.co.uk.
