Intro

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The Background to the Spirit of PaperTigers Project

The Spirit of PaperTigers project is best understood within the overall goals of PaperTigers: that is, to encourage literacy, helping to make children hungry readers and thus helping them form a lifelong habit. It is also our goal to do that within the context of promoting “multicultural” or “cross-cultural” books: this means we focus on books that promote awareness of, knowledge about, and positive acceptance of “the other”, books that encourage empathy and understanding. We aim to do this through books children and young adults enjoy reading rather than books they would regard as medicine adults force them to take!

PaperTigers itself is an initiative of the nonprofit organization, Pacific Rim Voices, and the goals just outlined are part of the overall objective of Pacific Rim Voices: to raise awareness of our common humanity and to contribute to fuller human community.

The Purposes of the Spirit of PaperTigers Project (SPT)
 
To donate a selection of books which reflect the aims of PaperTigers to schools and libraries in different parts of the world, focusing mostly, though not exclusively, on areas of need:

Many organizations are doing excellent work in getting books to children through schools and libraries in areas of need, and our efforts are not intended to replicate their work. The specific focus of this SPT project is to select a set of books published each year because their content, focus, and outreach express the goals of reading and literacy, as well as encouraging curiosity among young people about the world around them.

The central criterion in the mind of the selection panel was to give special recognition to books that, in addition to meeting conventional standards for excellence, will also contribute to PaperTigers’ broader aims of bridging cultures and opening minds, and of promoting greater understanding and empathy among young people from different backgrounds, countries, and ethnicities. Another criterion was that books selected had to be in English, or bilingual publications where one of the two languages is English. 

To encourage reading and discussion of these books:

As well as sending these sets out to young readers through schools and libraries, we will seek to report responses of the children to these books through their teachers, librarians, or parents on the PaperTigers site and blog. This will enable them to compare their favorites from the set with the choices of children elsewhere.

What SPT Means in Practice

1. getting worthwhile books (that reflect the specific aims of PaperTigers) into the hands of as many young readers as possible, above all in geographical areas of real need, with a particular focus on Africa, the Americas, and Asia;
2. to do this through partnering with other organizations – or individuals - that are effectively engaged in helping children and young adults to be literate and to become lifelong readers and learners.

The Spirit of PaperTigers Book Sets

In the course of the summer of 2009 we invited a number of people involved in the world of children’s books to indicate their favorite books published in 2008 or 2009, within the criteria outlined above, and we added their suggestions to our own lists of potential books. Our team, which included editors, writers and teachers (all of whom are also parents of young children), then met in San Francisco in November 2009, to select the book set to be donated in 2010.

2010: A Trial Run

This first year of the Spirit of PaperTigers project is along the lines of a trial run. We are in the process of sending out 100 sets of books to schools and libraries in areas where there is real need – although what those needs are differ markedly from one place to another. We have two further criteria in mind when we are making the choice of where to send the sets:

Firstly, in the recipient school or libraries it is important either that English is one of the languages used in the country, or that there is at least some rudimentary knowledge of English, in which case the books can be used in the process of learning the language.

Secondly, we always seek to have a contact person in the places concerned with whom we can communicate via email if at all possible, or at least by regular mail if email is not available. This communication is absolutely necessary if we are to be able to let other people know about responses to the books on the PaperTigers site and blog, and if we are to recognize publicly the schools and libraries that are participating in this Spirit of PaperTigers project.

Posted February 2010