From the other side of the bookstore cash register, one reality is crystal clear: purchasing a book is never the conclusion of the story. For the actual reader, it is merely the opening threshold. A book is lifted from a shelf, paid for, and registered as a neat numeric tick on a publishing sales ledger. […]

Let us begin by reaffirming a core truth: nobody in the Sand Fox Award holds extra voting power. Neither myself nor any of the young colleagues attending our weekly strategy meetings possess a privileged ballot. Each of us casts exactly one vote—no more and no less than any other participating adolescent across the country for […]

In the Sand Fox Award, we never rely on a single isolated number. For every participating title on the evaluation platform (sandfox.ir), one can readily see both how many young people voted and the book’s cumulative rating out of five stars. Even these two figures often reveal contrasting stories: one volume may attract a vast […]

Nobody needs to announce themselves or explicitly define what kind of reader they are. Spend just a few sessions together in the Sand Fox Award reading circles, and a young person’s reading habits disclose themselves naturally: through the book recommendations they offer, the volumes they quietly set aside without finishing, and the precise moments where […]

The outcome matters deeply to us as well. Naturally, every reader wants to know how their chosen book fares in the final rankings. We want to see which titles rise to the top and what literature our peers across the country are voting for. Yet at a certain point, a subtle distortion can occur: we […]

Let us make one foundational principle clear from the outset: nobody in the Sand Fox Award has a privileged vote. Neither myself nor any of the young organizers attending our planning sessions hold extra electoral weight. Each of us possesses exactly one vote, identical to every other participating young judge across Iran. Even if I […]

Whenever adults start pontificating about adolescents and literature, it never takes long before someone sighs: “They’re glued to their smartphones all day.” Well, yes, we are. The phone sits permanently in our palms. We text friends, stream music playlists, map subway connections, follow live football scores, edit social video reels, study for exams, and play […]