children’s books |

July 18, 2018
by Sucharita Dutta-Asane Leave a comment

The very hungry caterpillar lied to you as a child

(From Atlas Obscura. Link to the complete article given below)

Do children’s books need to be fact-checked to make them more true to nature?

Think of the best scene from your favorite children’s book. Easy, right? The Very Hungry Caterpillar emerges from his cocoon, now a beautiful butterfly that takes up two whole pages. Sal and the Mama Bear run into each other in the blueberry patch. The rascally mouse gets yet another cookie.

There’s a reason this particular page stuck in your mind. Maybe it surprised you, or taught you a lesson, or made you laugh. But have you ever wondered if it’s accurate?

Yes, children’s books are bastions of fantasy, the rightful homes of dragons and magic crayons and talking cheese. But as kids spend less time outdoors, and more time learning about nature through screens, some experts are taking a closer look at how well the lessons translate. The answer is often a resounding “Needs Improvement.” And fixing up picture books—those colorful gateway drugs to further education—might be a good first step.

Depending on who you ask, there’s a lot to be done, and some scientists have been holding grudges for decades. “When I was working with an entomologist on an insect book, he said that one of his pet peeves is that the editor for Eric Carle’s book about the hungry caterpillar did not vet it [with an expert],” says Donna German, General Manager at Arbordale Publishing. “He cringes to think at how many people, kids and adults, think that butterflies emerge from cocoons because of this one book.” (Butterflies instead come out of chrysalises.)

Stockholm librarian Elisabet Risberg on Arabic books in Sweden

Just over six months ago, Publishing Perspectives reported that the United Arab Emirates’ Kalimat Foundation for Children’s Empowerment provided 2,000 Arabic books for presentation during Sweden’s Göteborg Book Fair—a gesture of solidarity with Sweden’s Arab community.

The foundation’s creator, Sheikha Bodour bint Sultan Al Qasimi, had learned that Arabic is the second or third most-spoken language in Sweden today because of the diaspora of Arabic speakers to the Scandinavian nation.

The Arabic-language books from Sharjah,” she told us at the time, “are to be distributed to 25 libraries in various parts of Sweden.”

With the distribution of that donation now complete, Publishing Perspectives has been in touch with Elisabet Risberg, who leads the Internationella biblioteket, the International Library of Stockholm, to find out how the outreach from Sharjah to Sweden’s Arabic-speaking children has gone.

The International Library in central Stockholm feeds the national network of libraries with multilingual content, and its website can be read in Swedish, in Arabic, in English, in French, Chinese, Persian, Russian and Spanish.

All told, the international library is working in more than 100 languages and it can dispatch content in a requested language to the entire library system in Sweden.

We began by asking Risberg about the concept of the Kalimat provision of Arabic books for children in Sweden.

…

Elisabet Risberg: When I first heard about the donation, I was confused. Why should we in a rich country accept donations of Arabic children’s books?

Bright prospects for children’s publishing in India

One of my highlights of visiting India as a kid was to buy an obscenely large number of Tinkles and Amar Chitra Kathas. I was so accustomed to reading Western children’s literature that to me these books with stories (and stereotypes as I later discovered) rooted in India and free of stuffy British aristocracy felt like kindling a broken cultural connection.

Thankfully, kids today don’t have to make the same choices. Over the last two decades, children’s publishing in India has burgeoned, moving away from quasi-encyclopaedic tomes to works that break with the industry’s earlier conservatism and span a variety of genres. Part of this has been driven by Tara Books, Karadi Tales and Tulika Publishers, which focus solely on children’s books and helped build up an ecosystem of children’s publishing in the country.

More recently, even other publishers have seen the green (if not storytelling possibilities) of the children’s book segment. Two recent children’s book imprints are Talking Cub and HarperCollins Children’s Books, both of which were officially launched on Children’s Day last year. Their initial bets are entertainment-driven, not a bad choice in a market where educators and parents still largely expect children’s books to edify.

Selling rights into China: Interview with literary agent Jackie Huang

Established in 2002, Andrew Nurnberg Associates China is a go-to agency for a many looking to sell rights into the Chinese market. And on February 5 and 6, when Frankfurter Buchmesse stages its two-day Frankfurt Publishers Training Program at the Taipei International Book Exhibition, literary agent Jackie Huang will be a key speaker.

Focused on the rising rate of rights sales to Chinese publishing houses in the past few years, Huang’s talk is one of the most anticipated of the event, which is being led by Frankfurt international business development director Katharina Ewald.

In advance of her address, “Ways Into the Chinese Market,” Publishing Perspectives has had a chance to explore several issues and trends with Huang, who directs Andrew Nurnberg’s Beijing office. We open our exchange by asking about the scale of rights activity the agency is seeing now in its Chinese operations. And we have a chance to show you here some of the key titles the agency has sold recently.

Publishing Perspectives: Can you give us an idea of the pace of rights activity you’re seeing in the Beijing office today?

Jackie Huang: We mainly represent clients from Europe and North America, selling translation rights to Chinese publishers covering adult fiction, nonfiction, and children’s books.

On average, we’re selling rights to more than 1,000 titles per year.

Chinese editors generally have preferred buying rights in nonfiction, especially in history, psychology, popular culture and popular science, parenting, and self-help. But since last year, translated fiction has been having more and more rights attention from Chinese editors, especially for science fiction novels and inspiring coming-of-age stories.

Satyajit Ray’s Prof. Shonku is ready for the big screen

Satyajit Ray’s eccentric character is being turned into a film by his son Sandip.

When Sandip Ray read the first draft of his father’s stories based on fictional scientist Professor Shonku in 1961, he was not even 10 years old. The character appeared to him a “bit eccentric and over the top.”

Soon after the stories on the old scientist created by Satyajit Ray were published in a Bengali periodical, accolades in the form of letters and phone calls started coming in.

Five decades later, Professor Trilokeshwar Shonku retains undiminished appeal, prompting Sandip Ray to bring the character to life on the big screen.

The film, Professor Shonku O El Dorado, produced by SVF Entertainment, one of eastern India’s largest production houses, is likely to hit the screens by the end of 2018.

“I have been thinking about making a film on Professor Shonku for a long time. With so many developments in the visual effects field, I think this is the right time,” Mr. Ray said. The film is based on one of the spell-binding stories in the Professor Shonku series, called ‘Nakur Babu O El Dorado’.

The main character, Professor Shonku, is a scientist-inventor, and along with the visual effects, the plot takes the audience to the forests of South America. The bilingual production in Bengali and English will be shot in both West Bengal and Brazil.

The director has made a number of films on Feluda, the iconic detective, and another of Satyajit Ray’s creations. The new venture will be both a “challenge and a nice change of pace after so many Feluda films,” he says.

Ray created Feluda, inspired by Sherlock Holmes, giving the character a resemblance to everything about the muse: physical features, methods and the chronicling of his adventures. But Professor Shonku is different. He is inspired by George Edward Challenger, better known as Professor Challenger, also created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Professor Shonku is an eccentric inventor, living in Giridih with his servant Prahlad and cat Newton.

Shanghai recognises UK translator Wang’s ‘special contribution’ to literature

Helen Wang, a London-based literary translator and British Museum curator has been recognised on the international stage for her “special contribution” to children’s literature at the 2017 Chen Bochui International Children’s Literature Awards in Shanghai.

Wang, who translates contemporary Chinese literature, including novels, picture books and graphic novels for children and young adults, was commended as “a tireless champion” for Chinese children’s literature at the event, which named her Special Contributor of the Year on the eve of the city’s fifth international children’s book fair.

Wang earlier this year took home the 2017 Marsh Christian Award for her translation of Cao Wenxuan’s Bronze and Sunflower, set in the Chinese countryside during the Cultural Revolution, that was originally published by Phoenix Publishing House and published in translation by Walker in the UK and Candlewick in the US.

In addition to her translations, Wang has also worked collaboratively with the China Fiction Book Club, Paper Republic and Global Literature in Libraries. In 2016, she co-founded Chinese Books for Young Readers, a resource collating scant reliable information about Chinese children’s books.

“Helen Wang is a tireless champion for Chinese children’s literature. And her advocacy is widely recognised and appreciated,” said Junko Tokota, one of the judging panel.

She added: “Although her name is synonymous with children’s translation, Helen Wang has raised the visibility and professionalism of children’s literature translation worldwide.”

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April 6, 2017
by Admin Leave a comment

The curious case of children’s literature

By Bijal Vachharajani

Why don’t international book lists really get Indian kid-lit? A question I have often pondered, and am sure others in the industry have as well.

Two years ago, The Guardian, which has excellent recommendation for kid-lit and YA Books, published an article titled, “What are the best children’s books about India?” The list included some outstanding books, but most weren’t really representative of the country’s diverse kid-lit. Especially if you’re looking for slice-of-life stories. Two of the selections, for instance, were folk tales. Another pick, Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book, isn’t really the best example, when there’s an entire fleet of publishers creating some fantastic new children’s literature in English in our country. The more updated list actually comes from Duckbill’s Sayoni Basu in the comments section of the piece. Read more

Source: The Hindu

March 6, 2017
by Admin Leave a comment

All fun and games at the Hong Kong International Young Readers Festival

By Chris Wood

Rickshaw is a proud, vain and extremely noisy rooster living in the backstreets of 1920s Shanghai. In the annual race along the Bund, winning is a matter of national pride for contestants representing Shanghai’s international concessions. Will the foreigners win again, or will a local hero carry the day?

Find out when Sarah Brennan, locally based author of the best-selling Chinese Calendar Tales and the Dirty Story series for children, introduces The Tale of Rickshaw Rooster as part of the Hong Kong International Young Readers Festival next Sunday.

“The festival is designed to encourage young people to engage with the literary arts, improve English language skills and support cultural exchange,” says festival manager Phillipa Milne. “We aim to promote the benefits of reading and instil a lifelong love of reading.” Read more

Source: scmp.com

February 8, 2017
by Admin Leave a comment

The little boy who decided to write (and publish!) his own book

Many a child has amused parents with fantastical (sometimes non-sensical!) stories dreamed up in a way only a toddler could manage, and surely many have also “written” books with a few drawings or scribbles on paper. Rishav Gupta (now age 8), took things a bit further.

“I want my own storybook!” Rishav told his mother Srinanda, an early years teacher at Chatsworth International School, when he was just 3.

At this stage he wasn’t writing, though he’d demonstrated a love of storybooks and a keenness for drawing.

“It all started with doodling,” Srinanda recalls. “Pay attention to the doodles: every scratch can have a story behind it if you just ask. Every curvy line can have a story.” If I wasn’t a teacher I might not have known that, but as a teacher you have an awareness that it’s something truly authentic worth paying attention to. Read more

Source: Sassy Mama

January 13, 2017
by Admin Leave a comment

Have you written a children’s story inspired by Asia?

The Scholastic Asian Book Award (Saba) is a joint initiative between the National Book Development Council of Singapore and publishers Scholastic Asia that “will recognise children’s writers of Asian origin who are taking the experiences of life, spirit, and thinking in different parts of Asia to the world at large”.

Since its inception in 2011, the biennial award has been responsible for publishing English language works by authors from all over Asia, including India, Hong Kong, and Singapore.

The best manuscript wins S$10,000 (RM31,000) and will be considered by Scholastic Asia for publication; the authors of the first and second runners-up manuscripts will be offered advice by Scholastic Asia on editing and submitting their works for publication. Read more

Source: Star2.com