A World of Colour
The Mountains to Sea festival is in full swing this week in Dun Laoghaire with lots of children's books events to delight school audiences and the general public. Don't miss the wonderful exhibition of art by Italian-born, French-based writer-illustrator Beatrice Alemagna and Ireland's own Chris Haughton.
These two picture-book creators have produced, in very different styles, work that oozes with respect for their target audience, reflecting a world at a child's eye level, but, always, with something for the adult reader in it too.
Valerie Coghlan in her piece for the Irish Times (over here) sums it up:
"This exhibition reminds us that picturebooks are not only the preserve of preliterate children, recalling the words of Randolph Caldecott, the 19th-century illustrator, who is sometimes credited with being the father of the modern picturebook. Caldecott said that a good picturebook always has something there for the adult as well as the child. He didn’t mean that children were excluded, but that older children and adults see more – and perhaps interpret a visual story differently as their understanding develops."
Beatrice Alemagna and Chris Haughton will be in conversation with Margaret Anne Suggs in the dlr LexIcon this Sunday at 12. More details here.
So head over to Dun Laoghaire and dive into a World of Colour: there's something in it for everyone!
"[Alemagna] spends a lot of time observing children and her interest in childhood and its temporal fragility is evident throughout her work. Her most recent books The Marvellous Fluffy Squishy Itty Bitty (Thames and Hudson) and What Is a Child (Tate) evoke this, capturing the emerging individuality of the children who populate her pages." (Valerie Coghlan)
Thinking green thoughts
What better way to celebrate Paddy's Day than by reading great books written or illustrated by Irish children's book authors? There's lots to admire all round, for all age groups and in all genres. To help you pick a 'green' book this weekend, have a look at iBbY Ireland's selection of some of the best recently published books in English and Irish for iBbY Europe’s Children’s Books in European Languages. The selection can be searched by language and is widely consulted the world over.
Here are some of the titles we included: Ná gabh ar scoil! (Máire Zepf, ill. Tarsila Kruse, Futa Fata); An gabhar a raibh an-ocras go deo air! (Máire Ní Chualáin, ill. Natasha Rimmington, Futa Fata); Morf (Órna Ní Choileáin, ill. Olivia Golden, An Gúm); Rabbit and Bear (Julian Gough, ill. Jim Field, Hodder); Nothing Tastes as Good (Claire Hennessy, Hot Key); The Wordsmith (Patricia Forde, Little Island); The Ministry of SUITs (Paul Gamble, Little Island); Oasis (Eilis Barrett, Gill Books); Harold’s Hungry Eyes (Kevin Waldron, Phaidon) and more. Make sure to check these selections over here.
And if it's still not enough, the Children's Books Ireland's Book of the Year award shortlist was just announced this week.
Happy Paddy's Day!
1001 languages
The Bilingual Picturebook project comes from the belief that a child’s first contact with a book should always be in their native language. Demand for bilingual books is enormous, but there are very few available. To remedy this German charity BucherPiraten has assembled a network of book makers and promoters as well as translators to create a unique online database of bilingual book written by children for children.
With the guidance of writers and artists, ten children from Germany created the first book in the collection, Chocolate Cake in Hawaii, which was later translated professionally into Mandarin, Arabic, English, French, Russian and Spanish. This book was then uploaded on the website where it is downloadable for free by anyone who wants to read it... or translate it. Native speakers of any language can submit a new translation of this and all the other titles in the database. This translation is then reviewed by another native speaker before it is added to the collection.
Many of the books are also available as audio books. Before downloading your chosen title, you decide which two languages you need, for a unique experience to suit your linguistic needs.
More info here.
Great Reads Awards
Welcome to the ‘GRA’ award, a brand new award judged by young Irish readers to reward brilliant début YA novels. The two shortlists (one for the junior award, the other for the senior award) were established by librarians working in a variety of Irish second level schools who are passionate about introducing students to great books.
The aim of the award is to highlight new authors and diversify the reading of young adults. It’s also an opportunity for students to voice their enthusiasm about good writing for their age group at a time during the school year when examinations are less pressing.
Voting forms and online voting links are on the “Rating Forms” page of the website; to help young people cast their votes, the GRA website provides handy critical thinking sheets over here. The school submitting most ratings will get a prize. The deadline is January 12 2017.
Get voting!
And They Told Stories Happily Ever After...
After the sobering choice of 'xenophobia' as Dictionary.com’s word of the year, what a brilliant burst of xenophilia at iBbY Ireland’s Once upon a Folktale competition!
Pupils at St Patrick’s Primary School in Celbridge wowed the audience and judges with superb storytelling: confident, creative and celebrating their diverse nationalities. The novel props included a gushing river of blue sheets pulled by string, and cardboard hexagons for the Giant’s Causeway.
Judges from Celbridge Library, International Education Services and iBbY Ireland praised the artistry and articulacy of performers who swept their audience round the world from Ireland to India, Romania to Kenya, Lithuania to Mexico and back. A huge thank you to the Principal and staff of St Patrick’s who made the time and space for their pupils to shine.
If you would like your school or group to get involved in the Once Upon a Folktale project, drop us a line!
Narrative4: The Power of Sharing Stories
iBbY Ireland got a chance to meet James Lawlor, regional director for Narrative 4 Ireland, a new not-for-profit organisation dedicated to promoting social change through storytelling.
Can you tell us what Narrative 4 is? How it works and a bit of its history?
Narrative 4 (N4) is a not-for-profit organisation promoting social change through storytelling. Narrative 4 aims to foster empathy by breaking down barriers and shattering stereotypes through the exchange of stories across the globe. Narrative 4 was established in the United States in 2012 by some of the world’s leading authors and artists, including the Irish novelist Colum McCann.
The core methodology behind Narrative 4 is the story exchange, an exercise in which individuals are paired off and each shares a story that in some way defines them. Afterwards, each participant takes on the persona of their partner and telling their partner’s story in the first person.The story exchange is based on the simple idea that by knowing the story of another, we are able to better understand one another.
The Narrative 4 program is designed to build a mutual trust that strips away the typical narratives of cynicism and despair. By bringing people together through storytelling, we will build a new narrative for immigration, for the environment, for peace. Our narrative is for change, for fearless hope, and for radical empathy.
It's a simple idea on paper. Have you found it easy to gather support to implement it in Ireland? Or was there any resistance?
The power of the story exchange is its simplicity. Storytelling is the oldest thing in the world and Ireland has a historical relationship with storytelling. We have received incredible support in Ireland since we established.
In 2015, Narrative 4 decided to expand outside of the United States by setting up a European Centre in Limerick City Ireland. We had previously run programmes as pilots in Limerick which were overseen by the global office in New York. The community in Limerick were very supportive of our initiative. I guess on a macro scale, Limerick knows the damage a stereotype can do and has successfully been trying to re-story itself. Limerick City and County Council, the J. P McManus Benovolent Fund and the University of Limerick Foundation have been incredibly supportive in getting us established in the heart of the city. We feel at home here and are part of the start-up culture that has been growing in the city for the last number of years. Our N4 Centre opened in October 2016 and since then we are bringing students to the city centre in order to conduct workshops in storytelling, art, creative writing, active citizenship and of course story exchanges. We are also working within the community and collaborating with groups such as Men’s Sheds and working with asylum seekers.
Can you tell us about the specific projects you have run so far? Which one made the strongest impression on you and why?
Some of the best N4 projects I have taken part in are projects where the two groups taking part are very diverse. For example this year we worked with teenage students and elderly residents of Sue Ryder estate next to their school in Dublin. The youngest participant was 14 and the oldest was 104! Or in the UK, we collaborated with author Ruth Gillian and the University of Birmingham working with mostly Caucasian schools and schools with a Muslim majority. It is incredibly special to see communities of people finding their common ground and step into the world of the other and seeing the world through a new perspective.
After a project has run its course, how does it affect or change the participants?
The programme is designed to instil empathy, confidence, creativity, collaboration and communication in our participants. These 21st-century skills are vital for their successful futures. There is on-going research project through the Yale Centre for emotional intelligence and the University of Chicago on the emotional benefits of Narrative 4 and the Born This Way Foundation. We try and stay engaged with our network. This year we have formed a N4 Leaders Committee who meet regularly in Limerick. The leaders are young people who have gone through the programme through their schools and want to make positive social change in their communities. We provide workshops and facilitate some of the discussions but the real powerful part of the process is the peer to peer learning. It is an ongoing process of up-skilling and learning but our young people have done incredible projects in their own communities already, from issues around bullying to homelessness.
Every summer, the annual Narrative 4 Global Summit takes place. In 2016, Senator George Mitchell opened our summit in Queen’s University Belfast and spoke about the role of culture in peacemaking. We then travelled to Dublin to the Department of Foreign Affairs and then onto Limerick. Educators, artists and students from all across the world attend the summit. In 2017, the summit will take place again in Ireland. The most powerful aspect of the summit is the peer to peer network the students create. Students from South Africa who have made a stand against the inequalities of their education system meet students from Belfast or from Mexico. They work together on issues. They also meet community leaders and activists from across the world who have walked their path before them.
In your experience has it ever *not* worked or has something positive and interesting always come out of the pairing?
Like any other programme good facilitation is key. A good facilitator can address issues before they become a bigger issue by talking with the teacher, and maybe spending some extra time addressing certain parts on the programme. No student is made do the story exchange, it is not part of their core school work, but if they do sign up for it, there is a responsibility to take part. We aim to build confidence and skills in the participant sbefore the story exchange. We also have built in safety features in the programmemso the participants are comfortable with the story they choose to tell. In our N4 Centre we have a value charter created by our N4 Leaders which says ‘In this place a story is a gift’. Which translates to taking care with someone else's story. Treat people in the same manner in which you yourself would like to be treated. These are good values to put a focus on.
What's next for Narrative 4 in Ireland?
We are just in our first few weeks of operation, so we want to grow the programme at a sustainable rate and work with communities all over Ireland and further afield . We have lots of exciting plans for the future. We want to start using state-of-the-art technology through our technology partners to globally connect kids.
How can people (schools, writers, storytellers, artists...) get involved?
We would love to hear from interested schools, writers, storytellers, artists. At the moment we are accepting expression of interests at : james@narrative4.com or info@narrative4.com with Ireland' in Subject line.
Thanks, James! Find out more at narrative4.com and check out this video:
The "Best Multicultural Children's Books of 2016" published in the US
The Center for the Study of Multicultural Children's Literature is releasing its 4th Annual list of the "Best Multicultural Children's Books of 2016" published in the US. The list is available as a free downloadable pdf on the website and is also available as a Pinterest board.
CSMCL houses a non-circulating collection of recent and historically significant multicultural children's and young adult books, art works and manuscripts.
Re-opening the Lampedusa library
For a number of years IBBY has been supporting a small children’s library on the Mediterranean island of Lampedusa. Our members have donated books with no words - the Silent Books - that have been used on the island by the children arriving as refugees. The books have also toured different venues around the world.
Over these years the library has been temporary, but nevertheless been of huge benefit to the local young people and to the young people arriving by sea. Now is the time to urge the local municipality to follow up on their promise to open the official IBBY Library on Lampedusa.
IBBY Italia has written an open letter to the Mayor urging her to make the library official, which you can read in Italian, French at the end of these links and in English in the document below . Linked to the letter is a petition: right now there are 877 signatures!
To add your name and support, please sign the petition at the bottom of the letter in Italian. Just put your name and position (this is voluntary), and submit by clicking the SUBMIT button.
With a stable environment the children from the refugee camps will be able to visit the library more often and thus benefit from the wonderful books available to them.
Sign today and make a difference.
Thank you!
Nearly There Folks!
Twigs, wigs, cardboard axes and glittery wings ... props are flying round the classroom as pupils at St Patrick’s primary in Celbridge rehearse for Once upon a Folktale.
It’s two weeks until the storytelling competition, organised by IBBY Ireland with the school, and yarns are spinning all over the place.
Children will be telling traditional tales from their countries of origin to celebrate the school’s wonderful diversity on its tenth anniversary. There are 16 nationalities in sixth class alone.
Judges from IBBY Ireland, Celbridge Library and the local community will meet the Woman in the Moon from Native America, the Dancing Stick from Kenya, Lithuania’s Queen of Serpents and a few Eternal Youths from Ireland among many others. Can’t wait.