Books – Made in UAE – 2012 Edition
To mark the conclusion of the successful project “Books – Made in UAE”, the UAE Board on Books for Young People (UAEBBY) and the Goethe-Institut Gulf Region present seven new Arabic children’s books in the framework of the Sharjah International Book Fair. What is special about these books is that both authors and illustrators are Emirati – the books are 100 percent made in UAE.
Since March 2011 Emirati children’s book authors and illustrators worked together in workshop jointly organised by UAEBBY and the Goethe-Institut. Whether adventurous head louse, hungry giraffe or little flamingo: authors and illustrators managed to make the stories come to life in a creative and imaginative way. The workshop was conducted by well-known German children’s book author and illustrator Ute Krause.
All children’s books have received an offer of publication from local and regional publishing houses.
The project is organised by the UAE Board on Books for Young People (UAEBBY) and the Goethe-Institut Gulf Region and sponsored by the Emirates Foundation.
UAEBBY and the Goethe-Institut Gulf Region present seven Emirati children’s books created as part of their joint project “Books – Made in UAE”. The project was organised in order to encourage the development of Emirati-made children’s books with texts and illustrations reflecting the cultural values and interests of Emirati children.
Led by the award-winning German children’s book writer and illustrator Ute Krause, six Emirati authors teamed up with seven illustrators to work together on their stories. In November 2012, the story Umm Jadeedah was chosen as the best story by an international jury while the text of Hashtoor and the illustrations of Runaway Louse and Fanteer the Fluffy Flamingo were given a special recommendation.
The exhibition Books – Made in UAE – New Emirati Children’s Books presents the results of this project and gives a glimpse inside the process of creating the books. In 2013 this exhibition was presented in various locations throughout the United Arab Emirates. Readings and talks with participating authors and illustrators have been organized as a by-program of the exhibition.
How can children be encouraged to discover the joy of books, develop their creativity and their thirst for reading? We invited school librarians to explore these questions in an interactive workshop.
The workshop were conducted by experienced reading promotion expert Gaby Hohm. The workshop were designed to encourage and support librarians from schools and public libraries in the UAE to try out new and interactive methods of reading promotion in their libraries. The methods were designed to actively involve the children in order to make reading and books an important part of every child’s life. The one-day workshops were be based on a “building block concept”. Each building block consists of a creative activity, a stimulating idea or an exciting method how to promote reading to children. From this wide range of building blocks, librarians can then choose those activities which are most suited to their needs and “build” their own reading promotion campaign for their library.
The participants’ experiences, problems and questions from their daily library work were constantly integrated into the workshop and methods and ideas adapted to their needs. Together, librarians and workshop instructor developed new reading promotion strategies that are practicable, easily implemented and that can be adjusted to different library profiles and requirements.
The workshop in Sharjah was organised by the UAE Board on Books for Young People (UAEBBY), the Goethe-Institut Gulf Region and Knowledge without Borders.