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Aaron’s Rights and Permissions

Aaron Shepard’s Web site and publications have become valued sources of fresh, vibrant, meaningful books, stories, and scripts for publishers and other content acquirers worldwide. These acquirers have included Random House, the College Board, Barron’s Educational Series, the British Broadcasting Corporation, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, National Geographic School Publishing, Pearson in several countries, and many more. (See below for a full list.)

Most of Aaron’s works are retellings of folktales, classic literature, and sacred stories, from around the world and through the ages. These retellings are marked by Aaron’s thorough research, respect for sources, and storytelling skills, which have together brought him honors from the American Library Association, the National Council for the Social Studies, the American Folklore Society, the New York Public Library, and the Bank Street College of Education.

Besides his many children’s books from publishers large and small, Aaron’s work has appeared frequently in Cricket and Australia’s School Magazine. It is also viewed extensively on his Web site, which welcomes up to 25,000 teachers, librarians, and others each week.

In general, a fee is required for your use of Aaron’s work if you intend to make money from it, and sometimes even if you’re not. However, many permissions are freely given, usually in the small print of the pieces themselves. For school or library use of scripts, see Reader’s Theater Editions. For storyteller permissions, see Gifts of Story.

Prime areas of this site for finding content include:

  • About Aaron’s Kid Books—Comprehensive info on Aaron’s published books for children. Note: For most of these books, Aaron is the author only, not the publisher, and does not control all rights needed for publication. Only children’s books from “Skyhook Press” have been published by Aaron.

  • Aaron’s World of Stories—Stories with text only, ready for any use.

  • Aaron’s RT Page—Reader’s theater scripts, plus info on his published script collections.

Looking for something special? See Aaron’s Indexes to find books, stories, and scripts by title, age, genre, theme, place, time, ethnic group, religion, mythology, holiday, or activity. Or you can just search Aaron.

For email notice of new books, stories, and scripts, subscribe to Aaron’s Update.

If you are interested in reprinting, reposting, or otherwise using works from Aaron’s Web site—and if permission is not granted on the piece itself—please contact Aaron with your details. In most cases he controls the rights, but otherwise he will let you know who to contact.

Aaron regrets he no longer allows use of his work in educational testing or related materials. If you’d like to know why, see his article “This Is Not a Test.”

He also does not grant rights to use rewritten, abridged, or “simplified” versions of his work. Texts must be complete and intact, with no more than normal copyediting.

If you’re an author or freelance anthologist, please note that Aaron cannot grant firm rights to his work before you sign with a publisher.

For those who need it, here is a checklist of what Aaron typically will have to know to consider your request.

Unless otherwise arranged, payment of any fee is expected within 30 days of agreement, in USD.

For print publication, Aaron can supply most works as Word files on request. However, all works on this site are already formatted with printer typography—“curly” quotes, real dashes, and such—so they can instead simply be saved to your computer and imported directly into your production software without further typographic conversion.

Here are acquirers of material featured on this site or in Aaron’s own publications. All are U.S. unless noted.

Abiva Publishing House, Philippines
Allyn & Bacon
A. M. Qattan Foundation, UK/Palestine
Arabic for All, UK
The Art Institute of Pittsburgh
Barron’s Educational Series
Bharati Bhawan, India
Brilliant Creations Publishing, Philippines
British Broadcasting Corporation
Cambridge University Press, UK
Cambridge University Press, India
CARE
Centre for JustPeace in Asia
Clio Online, Denmark
The College Board
Collins Learning (HarperCollins), India
Cordova Publications, India
Dane Publishing House, Philippines
Edebé, Mexico
Expeditionary Learning
Fort Wayne Parks & Recreation
Frank Educational Aids, India
Gecko Guides, Singapore
Geography Matters
Grupo Santillana Puerto Rico
Harcourt Education, UK
Harcourt Educational Measurement
Headword Publishing, India
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Hodder Education, UK
Hommie, Nigeria
Institute for Social Integration, Bar Ilan University, Israel
Jarrett Publishing Company
Jeevandeep Prakashan, India
Journeys in Film
Katha, India
Korea Froebel, Korea
Lakes Area Radio Theatre
LILLIT, Norway
Mauritius Institute of Education
McDougal Littell
McGraw-Hill Education
Measuring Up
Missio Austria
National Geographic School Publishing
New Saraswati House, India
New York State Department of Education
Orient Blackswan (formerly Orient Longman), India
Oswal Printers & Publishers, India
Oxford University Press, India
Oxford University Press, South Africa
Pearson Custom Publishing
Pearson Education, UK
Pearson Education Africa, South Africa
Pearson Education Canada
Pearson Education India
Pearson Education South Asia
Pearson Longman Hong Kong Education
Phoenix Learning Resources
Playbooks, Inc.
Port Discovery Museum
Posnayko (“Badger”), Ukraine
Rakas, Australia
Random House
Red Dog Records, New Zealand
Scholastic Education, UK
Singapore Ministry of Education
SIRS Publishing
Spirit Play (Unitarian)
Teacher Created Materials
TheatreworksUSA
University Press of First Asia, Philippines
United States Agency for International Development (USAID)
Veritas Publications
Via Afrika Publishers, South Africa
Vivendi Universal, France

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