6 : Sankofa I n the 2011 revolution, many Egyptians protested the Reading for All Festival, a government reading program, because of its ties with the ruling political class and Suzanne Mubarak, the for- mer First Lady of Egypt. Some even held signs that said “Reading for All and Injustice for All.” This may come as a surprise to many, considering that Mrs. Mubarak has been celebrated internationally, especially in the West, as a strong advocate for women’s rights and for improving the lives of children through education. However, this government reading program can shed some light on the status of children’s publication in Egypt during the past two to three decades. Egypt leads the Arab world in terms of the number of books published each year. According to the Egyptian Publishers Association, there were 460 registered publishers as of August 2012. The majority of books are published in Arabic, even though a few are published in English. It is hard to confirm the exact number of books published in Egypt because the data from national and international sources tends to vary. However, a report submitted to the World Intellectual Property Organization concludes that in 2000, for example, 8,539 local titles and 483 translated works from several languages were published (Ghoneim 10). In 1990, there were only 4,302 local titles and 120 translated titles published, which indicates the numbers had Relocating the Roots of the Arab Spring in Children’s Literature: Indoctrination and Political Socialization in Mubarak’s Egypt Muhammad Masud