Children and the city
or the day that was in it and the week that it's been, some French kids talk sense about living together through the wonderful project Les Enfants pour la cité run by children's magazines publishers Milan.
As part of the project, a wealth of resources has been gathered for families and educators, with videos and lesson plans around issues such as democracy and solidarity, tips for talking to children about them, for listening to them and for organising debates in the classroom.
Website and resources in French.
http://www.milanpresse.com/les-enfants-pour-la-cite
Telling tales in Celbridge
Over the next six weeks, pupils will team up with their 'compatriots' to recreate and rehearse a traditional tale from their families' original country. Using mime and rhyme, food and music, props, costumes and any other creative tools, each country group will spin its yarn before an audience of schoolmates, teachers and parents at the competition in early December, to be judged by iBbY and local community members.
Dublin Book Festival is around the corner
The Dublin Book Festival is nearly upon us! With a host of great events, it might be hard to take your pick. So why not check out the authors' interviews on the festival website?
Find out more about tapping folklore for inspiration with Caroline Busher, discovering nature in the city with Shane Casey or turning your surroundings into an epic landscape with Eithne Massey.
Creative writing, monster doodles, book launches, book clinics and more are on the programme.
Remember all the events are free, but some of them require booking. Check out http://www.dublinbookfestival.com
Dublin Book Festival
For those who fancy keeping the scary Halloween atmosphere alive for another while, Caroline Busher's writing workshop promises to be full of ghosts and haunted houses. Find out more here.
Áine Ní Ghlinn and Carol Betera will be launching their new book Hata Oisín with a reading, guided illustration and lots of surprises. More here.
Shane Casey will take budding authors through a wildlife writing workshop for anyone with a love of the natural world. Observation and imagination will both be brought into play for the greatest pleasure of both story- and facts-fans. Info here and there.
There will also be a Book Clinic and a Monster Doodle, a treasure hunt and the Winter Garden where families can curl up with a book (or twenty).
All events are free, but early booking is advised to avoid disappointment.
iBbY Ireland's Perpetual Calendar
This calendar was an initiative of iBbY Ireland who invited five other national sections to showcase some of the best children’s illustrations from each country. Estonia, Guatemala, Japan, Turkey and Zimbabwe joined us, and the result is this gorgeous perpetual calendar – perfect to note all those important birthdays, anniversaries, and other special annual dates.
You can now buy a copy (or two or more!) on our website, right here.
Table Quiz Fun!
Knowledge of children's books will be rewarded, however, this quiz is for everyone with general knowledge questions to beat the band!
Come for the brain teasing and leave with some amazing spot prizes, from beautiful signed hard-back books to limited edition titles and lots in between.
Foley's full bar will be in operation on the night with CBI laying on finger food.
Foley's Bar; 1 Merrion Row; Dublin 2
€20 for a table of 4 quizzers
Booking though Eventbrite, here.
We look forward to raising a glass with you!
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Silent Books
The second part required creating a collection of silent books (wordless picture books) that could be understood and enjoyed by children regardless of language. These books were collected from IBBY National Sections, over one hundred titles from over twenty countries. One set of books was deposited at the documentation and research archive in Rome (Palazzo della Esposizioni), another was delivered to the library in Lampedusa and a further set was part of a travelling exhibition.
This exhibition has now reached the French village of Montolieu (not far from Carcassone) where it will be on view next week, Oct 7-9. A host of free events will accompany the exhibition, with talks from various artists as well as representatives of both iBbY France and UK; there will also be a presentation of the wordless books created by the children of Montolieu for the children living on the Italian island: from Lampedusa... and back.
A Call to Action
Today 21 September is the International Day of Peace. And with that in mind and a fabulous illustration from Tove Jansson, here's iBbY international's timely call to action.
IBBY’S CALL-TO-ACTION
For sixty years the International Board on Books for Young People has followed the ideal that books build bridges between people. Books give us wings and can demolish the walls that are built on fear and intolerance.
This work is as important and relevant today as it was sixty years ago, particularly now when so many children around the world are facing enormous upheavals in their young lives. We are currently experiencing a global crisis and IBBY is unwavering in its support for those working for peace and understanding. We believe that every child has the right to read and we fully support the principles of the International Convention on the Rights of the Child.
IBBY is committed to helping children in crisis, whether they are refugees in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Asia and Oceania, North America or Latin America. IBBY looks for solutions. There are many IBBY projects, including the wordless Silent Books, book packs and introducing the library networks, which all work to alleviate the trauma that these young people are faced with. We also need to show children from different communities around the world how to welcome their new neighbours and how to live together in harmony. We firmly believe that stories and libraries can inspire this necessary accord.
Today, we urge all professionals working in the field of children’s literature to join us take action and find solutions to help the children and young people who are caught up in this current turmoil.
35th IBBY World Congress,
Auckland, New Zealand
21 August 2016
To find out more and get involved, head over to: www.ibby.org or email ibby@ibby.org
The Children's Books Ireland annual conference
The Children's Books Ireland annual conference is taking place this weekend (17/18 September 2016) in the Lighthouse Cinema in Dublin. This year’s theme, Better Together? Collaboration and Teamwork in Children’s Books looks at the pleasures and pains of working collaboratively. The terrific line-up includes: Oliver Jeffers& Sam Winston, JonArno Lawson & Sydney Smith, Katherine Woodfine, Katherine Rundell & Katherena Vermette in conversation with Cat Doyle, PJ Lynch & Ryan Tubridy, Pip Jones & Ella Okstad, Oisín, Erika & Kunak McGann, Máire Zepf, new Irish voices, Alan Cumyn andManuela Savi. For booking tickets and more info, head over here. For the full programme, it's here.
The iBbY Ireland committee will also be there in force on both days, so do come by and say hello!
70 Years of building bridges
With all the current enthusiasm for barriers – from Brexit to European fences keeping out refugees, to Trump’s proposed wall bordering Mexico – today marks a wonderfully welcome anniversary of bridge building.
70 years ago, on July 3rd 1946, the International Exhibition of Children’s Books opened in Munich. With books from 14 European countries on loan, and paintings by children around Europe on display, it sounds like a fun library event. But the date and location made it momentous. The Germans had surrendered only a year before and the country, not to mention most of Europe, was in tatters. The only reading matter for German children had been Nazi propaganda; any books questioning the regime or its values had long since gone up in smoke.
Those children were the future of the country. If they were to rebuild it from the ruins of Nazism, they needed exposure to new ideas – cultural tolerance, kindness, international understanding – that would encourage a different world view. And what better vehicle than stories that could sweep them away from the misery of daily life, from the bombed out streets and schools, the lack of food and fathers?
Everything about the exhibition was amazing, from its backing by the American army, to the agreement from countries so recently at war to send books to Germany, to the European postal services working at all. Most amazing of all was its organiser. Jella Lepman, a Jewish journalist, had fled to London after Hitler came to power. She was asked to return to Germany just 5 months after the Nazis surrendered to advise the occupying American army on the cultural and educational needs of German women and children. Imagine the terror she must have felt at the thought of setting foot in the nation that had massacred 6 million of her people. Imagine the incredulous laughter that could have met their request. And in her book A Bridge of Children’s Books, she admits that:
‘had only adults been involved, I would not have hesitated to say no. The word ‘Re-education’ rang hollow in my ears, too, as far as adults were concerned. But children – did that not change matters? I found it easy to believe that the children all too soon would fall into the wrong hands if no help came from the world outside.’
Seven years later, Lepman founded the InternationalBoard Books for Young People (IBBY) in Zurich. Now in 76 countries, IBBY promotes understanding through children’s books, through its awards and activities such as reading promotion, setting up libraries, organising storytelling events, supporting children affected by war or natural disaster through the Children in Crisis fund, and many other projects.
What a testimony to courage and vision that, sixty-three years later, IBBY members in 76 countries are building ever stronger bridges through children’s books. Thank you, Jella Lepman, for a simple ‘yes’ that transcended personal safety and pain to benefit thousands of readers, young and old, rich and poor, around the world.
Debbie Thomas