The inaugural Asian Festival of Children’s Content is set to take place May 6-9 in Singapore, and word is quickly spreading that this is a not-to-be-missed event!   The National Book Development Council of Singapore, which has been organizing the highly successful Asian Children’s Writers &  Illustrators Conference (ACWIC) for the past 10 years, has decided to take a slightly new approach this year by combining it with three new symposiums to form the Asian Festival of Children’s Content.  Jade Yong, Marketing Director for the festival tells us:

Writers, illustrators, school teachers, publishers, librarians, literary agents, distributors and retailers, translators, technology solution providers and other media professionals related to the world of children’s content will find this to be a  learning event that they cannot afford to miss. We are expecting about 300 to 400 delegates from all over Asia, Australia, New Zealand, North  America and Europe to attend the event.

Over 70 speakers will be at the festival, and some familiar names to PaperTigers’ readers include: Holly Thompson (Japan), Daphne Lee (Malaysia), Rukhsana Khan (Canada), Naomi Kojima (Japan), Uma Krishnaswami (USA), and  Christopher Cheng (Australia). Since, unfortunately, no one from PaperTigers will be able to attend the festival this year, we look forward to hearing from those of you attending! If you send us feedback, we will be happy to share your impressions, discoveries and/or photos with our readers.

The schedule for the festival has been released and  is as  follows:

Asian Children’s Writers & Illustrators Conference~ May 6-8, 2010

The Asian Children’s Writers and Illustrators Conference (ACWIC) will celebrate children’s books, provide access to children’s literature with Asian content, and promote the writing and publication of Asian children’s books. By providing great workshops and networking opportunities, this conference aims to actively promote and foster the exchange of ideas on the global market.

The conference is broken down into seven tracks:  New Media Technologies & Children’s Content, Alchemy of Writing, Illustrators’ Palette, Librarian’s Menu, Publishers’ Daily Bread, Marketing and Distribution—Creating Bestsellers, and ACWIC Highlights. The detailed scheduled is  here.

Asian Children’s Publishers Symposium~ May 8, 2010

The Asian Children’s Publishers Symposium (ACPS) will consist of workshops from leading players within the industry and interactive panel discussions led by professionals, all designed to foster knowledge, learning and strategies for building a successful children’s publishing industry.

Asian Primary & Preschool Teachers Congress~ May 8, 2010

The speakers and workshop leaders at the Asian Primary & Preschool Teachers Congress (APTC) will collectively provide an overview of comprehensive literacy instruction and showcase its best practices to educators, teachers and parents, to help bridge the gap between theory and practice.

Asian Parents Forum~ 9 May, 2010

Asian Parents Forum (APF) workshops will offer opportunities for parents and interested individuals to get professional advice, support and information on quality content, creative experience and potential, so that participants can become more confident and competent in promoting the reading habits and answering the learning needs of their children.

As you can see, the first Asian Festival of Children’s Content will cover all aspects and formats of children’s content inspired by and based on Asian sources. We encourage you to attend it, if you’re able and in the field. It should prove a wonderful opportunity for professional development and networking!

The Asian Children’s Festival takes place November 21 – 29 in Singapore. Click here to see the KidsASIA! activities being offered at The Plaza, National Library Building and here to view the Fringe activities being offered at local libraries. Librarian and programme director,  Ms. Haryani Othman says “2009 marks the tenth anniversary of ACF and we are BIGGER, BOLDER and BETTER this year! Kids can expect lots of exciting activities from ACF this year. Plus, what’s totally new this year is that we have got segments for parents too. All these programmes and workshops are free of charge too!”

The Asia/Pacific Cultural Centre for UNESCO (ACCU) is a non-profit organization which promotes mutual understanding and cultural cooperation among people in Asia and the Pacific, particularly in the fields of culture, book development, and literacy promotion. Since its beginning, ACCU’s literacy programs have focused on disadvantaged groups, such as those with limited education opportunities in rural areas, in particular girls and women. ACCU provides monetary and technical support to create regional versions of posters, booklets, games and puppets thereby making its literacy programs relevant to local life, culture, and languages.

For its Book Development projects, ACCU produces, translates, and distributes children’s books throughout Asia and trains local experts in an effort to contribute to the strengthening of local children’s book production. ACCU sponsors the Noma Concours for Picture Book Illustrations, which showcases the talents of up-and-coming illustrators, graphic designers and artists in Asia, the Pacific, Africa, Arab States, Latin America and the Caribbean. Click here to read PaperTigers’ recent interview with illustrator Wen Hsu, winner of the 2008 Noma Concours Grand Prize; and here to view our gallery featuring some of her award-winning illustrations.

This past March, ACCU held a symposium entitled “Artists of Children’s Books in Asia, Africa and Latin America”. Children’s book authors, illustrators (including Wen Hsu) and publishers from Costa Rica, Japan, the Philippines and Sudan were invited to Japan to share their thoughts on current issues in children’s book development in their respective countries, and to discuss the role of picture books in culturally diverse societies. A booklet containing the panelists’ papers is now available for download. To download selected papers, use the links below:

* Current Situation of Illustrators and Children in Costa Rica – Wen Hsu (Costa Rica)
* The Complicated Pleasure of Children’s Books – Karina Bolasco (Philippines)
* The Current Situation for Illustrators and Children’s Books in Sudan – Alaeldin Elgizouli Naeim (Sudan)
* Children, Festivals and Traditional Culture – Tajima Yukihiko (Japan)
* Picture Books Are More than Just Educational Tools – Tanaka Naoto (Japan)

The National Library Board of Singapore is proud to present the 9th Annual Asian Children’s Festival taking place from Nov 15 – 23. Started in 2001, the Asian Children’s Festival (ACF) promotes children’s literacy by providing opportunities for the creative and joyous learning of Asian content and culture among children. The free events, held at libraries throughout Singapore, feature internationally renowned children’s storytellers, writers, illustrators and puppeteers.

KidsASIA, the festival highlight and anchor event, will take place Nov 15 and 16 at Singapore’s National Library. This event showcases the culture, heritage and flavours of Asian communities, and families are encouraged to attend and “discover what makes growing up in Asia so special”. Five zones will be set up where families can enjoy hands-on activities (try the ancient marital art Aikido!) , or can sit back and be entertained by talented young musicians, dancers and storytellers.

Singapore librarian Ms. Chris Koh, tells me that this year a new program will debut at the festival – the Young Author’s Club. On Nov 15 at the Central Public Library, the Young Author’s Club will launch its audio books, adapted from stories written by 9 to 12 year olds and brought to life through the voices of 13 and 14 year olds from local schools. A story writing competition is also being held, with the grand winner receiving a scholarship to the Young Author’s Scheme.

Check out the Fringe Activites programme and see all the events being held throughout the week at local libraries! This year, attendance at the Asian Children’s Festival is expected to exceed 300,000. We would love to hear about your experiences if you attend!

Well, we did it, though time nearly ran away with us at the end. We’ve had so many extra things going on this month that apart from anything else, I wasn’t quite organised enough to go out and track down books we didn’t already have somewhere around the house… Older Brother had already set his sights a while ago on Arctic Adventures: Tales from the Lives of Inuit Artists by Raquel Rivera and illustrated by Jirina Martin (Groundwood, 2007); but we realised that our choice of books for the geographical area encompassing Southeast Asia on our PaperTigers map was somewhat limited. In the end, we revisited Asian Children’s Favorite Stories, retold by David Conger, Kay Lyons, Liana Romolo, Joan Suyenaga and Marian Davies Toth, and illustrated by Patrick Yee (Tuttle, 2006): Little Brother read the two stories from Thailand; and I read one from the Philippines and one from Indonesia as our official readaloud… of course, we did go on and read some of the others too – but it did serve as a reminder of the enjoyment you can get from just dipping into an anthology, rather than wading through the whole thing in one fell swoop, which is what I often tend to get carried away and do…

The two stories we read together, “The Mousedeer Becomes a Judge” and “The Golden Ring” both provoked quite a lot of discussion – the first because it had a strong moral which dealt efficiently with the nasty crocodile after he had tried to take a bite out of Buffalo, who had just saved his life; and the second because it is a folktale that explains why hawks and hens do not get on, and why hens scratch the ground, which we all enjoyed, even if we knew it wasn’t true. You can read a fuller review of the book here.

Of the two he read, Little Brother says:

I liked reading these folktales. The Fake Gem was about a person from Thailand called Phra who had a fake gem of glass and he was tempted to sell it to the Chinese Emperor Lao. Then Phra walked out and saw the bad thing he had almost done and in the end it turned out Lao wasn’t really a Chinese emperor anyway. “The Lucky Farmer Becomes King” was really cool because Lek was only a farmer but he managed to scare off invaders of Thailand but he didn’t have to fight them. Everyone thought he was brave but actually he was a scaredy-cat, except for when he fought a snake. The pictures are really funny, especially the snake one and the crocodile one where he’s cowering at the back of the boat.

Arctic Adventures: Tales from the Lives of Inuit Artists is a stunning book and, as Older Brother himself noticed, it is remarkable because the stories are all true and were not the experiences of adventurers but people who grew up to become artists. I’m not sure how much he took in this time round of the actual biographies of the four artists featured but I think it is the kind of book that will be read many times, and which will grow with its readers. Jirina Martin’s palette reflects the far northern setting with its glacial blues and greens and varied shades of grey and brown, and her style complements the examples provided of the actual artists’ work. I think this is a great book for boys who are themselves creative but also love adventure: it just proves you can be both. Here’s what Older Brother wrote:

My favourite story was about a boy and a girl who went out hunting and made a tent on some ice. Then in the morning there was a cracking noise and the tent and the children and all their dogs had broken away and they were stuck on an ice floe. In the end, they managed to get home but it was quite scary for me to think that this was a true story. In fact, all the stories are adventure stories and they’re all true. And I thought when I was reading it that it was amazing to think that all the stories were from artists because I want to be an artist when I grow up.

And so we come to the end of our Reading Challenge for this year. We’ve all really enjoyed it and if I had reservations at the beginning that I might have to cajole my two into keeping going, I needn’t have worried as, after each mini review, I was nagged into helping them find their next choice; and they have been quite thrilled at the possibility of their reviews spreading their wings and being read from anywhere around the world…

So if you took part, do let us know how you got on; and we look forward to you maybe joining us next year, when our challenge too will spread its wings and be even more global…

The National Library Board (NLB) of Singapore hosted its annual Asian Children’s Festival from Nov 17-25. Started in 2001, the Asian Children’s Festival (ACF) promotes children’s literacy by providing opportunities for the creative and joyous learning of Asian content and culture among children. The free events, held at libraries throughout Singapore and enjoyed by over 300,000 participants, featured internationally renowned children’s storytellers, writers, illustrators and puppeteers. This year 50 lucky youngsters were chosen to take part in the first-ever sleepover at the National Library – and, to heighten their experience of Asian culture, other activities such as poetry slams and a tour of the Singapore Art Museum were also planned.

Ms. Poh Poh Lim, a NLB librarian and ACF Project Manager, was pleased to share with us the details of this year’s festival. KidsAsia! was a new event which kickstarted the festival this year. It showcased “the rich culture, heritage, traditions and flavours of Asian communities” and helped children and their parents discover “what makes growing up in Asia so special.” Five KidsAsia! zones were set up at the National Library to allow children to enjoy a variety of experiences. Activities included the hands-on arts and crafts “Creativity Zone” and the “Kids Express Zone,” where music and dance were performed by children from throughout Asia. The “Going Places Zone” was enjoyed by all, as it featured a special mini-library and story corner where children and their parents were encouraged to browse and read books; an on-line reading area; and special readings hosted by members of the Asian Storytelling Network.

To reach out to as many children as possible, the ACF featured a Festival Fringe Programme, which included a variety of events held at regional and local libraries throughout the nine-day festival. Two books, put together by NLB librarians, Heritage Tales: Treasures from Singapore and The Tale Of The Missing Tail and Other Original Singapore Stories were launched at this year’s festival and shared with the children. For Ms. Lim, probably due to her librarian’s point of view, this aspect of the festival, most specifically the “Tales From Asia” programme, was its highlight.

Heritage Tales: Treasures from Singapore is an annotated bibliography which “highlights the richness and variety of Singapore’s children’s books. These titles represent our nation’s collective talents and experiences and are indeed treasures to be cherished and passed down from generation to generation.” The book, which during ACF was available for free at all Singapore libraries, includes a special section featuring works by children.

The Tale Of The Missing Tail And Other Original Singapore Stories is a compilation of original stories geared toward children ages 4-10.“This compilation includes stories in Chinese, Malay and Tamil. The 20 short stories are simple, honest tales inspired by contributors’ personal musings, experiences and culture. Some of them are rich with local characters; others are tales of bullying and other familiar issues such as sibling rivalry, childhood hobbies, achievement… Not to be missed are the tales of friendship and family love, and of monsters and endearing animals. And there’s a taste of fantasy, too! After all, what would a compilation of stories for children be without tales of princes and princesses? It’s all in there.” Copies of this book may be purchased at any Singapore library or by contacting the NLB.

In conclusion, Ms Lim says: “We have received the public’s ardent support for the past seven years. Now all we really want is to keep creating this opportunity for children to have the most fun-filled time of their lives while immersed in Asian culture and heritage.” Click on this photographer’s blog to see some photos of the event. Judging from the looks on the children’s faces, I’d say the festival goals were definitely met!