The other day, Corinne gave a heads up to Dr. Myra Garces-Bacsal’s sparkly Pre-AFCC Glitter posts – well, today’s features Corinne herself – so head on over to the wonderful Gathering Books blog  to see what Corinne is going to be doing at AFCC…

One thing it doesn’t mention, though, is that Corinne is also on the judging panel of one of the children’s book awards that will be presented during AFCC… Just looking at the shortlists makes you gulp at the decisions she and the rest of the panel are having to make!

The excitement is building for the Asian Festival of Children’s Content being held May 25 – 30 in Singapore. PaperTigers is proud sponsor of the AFCC, an annual event that brings together content creators and producers with parents, teachers, librarians and anyone interested in quality Asian content for children around the world. This year’s conference will have an added emphasis on young adult literature and children’s works in translation and will be featuring Malaysia as the country of focus. Two years ago I was blessed to be able to attend the AFCC and we subsequently devoted a PaperTigers issue to Singaporean Children’s Literature and the Asian Festival of Children’s Content.  This year Marjorie and I will both be attending and to say we are cloud 9 would be an understatement!

Last week the AFCC organizers held a press conference at the host hotel, Hotel Grand Pacific, right across the street from the official festival venue, theCentral Public Library.  Head on over to Dr. Myra Garces-Bacsal’s wonderful Gathering Books blog to read about and see photos from the press conference (click here). Also, be sure to check out Myra’s Pre-AFCC Glitter posts in which she will be conducting short interviews with AFCC invited guest speakers and other conference attendees. First up is Holly Thompson who will be launching her newest YA novel The Language Inside at AFCC, Holly was raised in the USA and is a longtime resident of Japan. Her verse novel Orchards (Delacorte/Random House) won the 2012 APALA Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature  and is a YALSA 2012 Best Fiction for Young Adults title. She recently edited Tomo: Friendship Through Fiction—An Anthology of Japan Teen Stories (Stone Bridge Press) and was a guest blogger on our blog last year. Click here to read her PaperTigers’ blog posts.

Marjorie and I will be participating in several of the AFCC sessions. First up for us is Marjorie’s seminar/workshop The Fine Art of Reviewing Children’s Books. Should you be attending  the AFCC we would love it if you were able to partake in this event! Details are as follows:

The Fine Art of Reviewing Children’s Books

Monday, May 27th
2:15pm – 5:45pm

Presentation:

• What makes a good book? What makes a good review?
• The components of a book review.
• Choosing books to review,

Break

Workshop:

• Group-discussion, reviewing a book
• Writing a review for publication

Marjorie Coughlan is the Editor of PaperTigers.org, a website and blog which seeks to highlight the richness of multicultural books from and/or about anywhere in the world, with a particular focus on the Pacific Rim and South Asia. PaperTigers.org is part of PaperTigers: Books+Water and includes the WaterBridge Outreach program.

Calling all illustrators! The Asian Festival of Children’s Content (AFCC) has just announced an online illustration contest called afccSKETCH. Illustrators around the world are invited to draw a piece of artwork based on the given theme and then email it to afcc(at)bookcouncil(dot)sg. Submitted entries will be posted on the AFCC Facebook page and the panel of judges will then decide on three winners whose works will be mounted and displayed at the Festival’s Book Illustrators Gallery. The three winners will also share in attractive prize package!

This year’s theme is One Big Story. Illustrate your interpretation of what One Big Story means in the context of children’s literary content! Works will be judged for skill, aesthetic quality, and how well the artist adheres to the theme.

Guidelines to keep in mind:

• Illustrations must be drawn specifically for afccSKETCH. No pre-existing illustrations, please!
• As winning entries will be printed for display, please send high-res PDF/TIF copies of your illustrations. When printed, they should be no more than A4 size. Hand-drawn or digital art is fine, so long as you can email it.
• You may submit up to two entries for consideration
• Keep it tasteful! And remember that this is a kid-friendly festival. Whether or not your work will be uploaded is up to Book Council staff and they will (sadly) have to delete anything with inappropriate content.
• Works will be accepted from around the world.
• Deadline: 13 May 2013, 3pm (GMT+8).
• Questions? Click here or email the organizers at afcc(at)bookcouncil(dot)sg

PaperTigers is a proud sponsor of the Asian Festival of Children’s Content which will take place May 25 – 30, 2013  in Singapore. For  Festival details, click here.

PaperTigers is a proud sponsor of the Asian Festival of Children’s Content (AFCC) , an annual event held in Singapore that brings together content creators and producers with parents, teachers, librarians and anyone interested in quality Asian content for children around the world. This year’s conference will have an added emphasis on young adult literature and children’s works in translation and will be featuring Malaysia as the country of focus. As we lead up to the 2013 AFCC (May 25 – 20th) we will be blogging about featured speakers, program details and more.  Both Marjorie and I will be attending the 2013 AFCC and we hope to see you there! For more information about the AFCC visit the festival website by clicking here.

Today’s blog post by Mr. John McKenzie was originally posted on the AFCC blog and has been reprinted here with permission of the festival organizer, The National Book Development Council of Singapore.

Why I Can’t Miss AFCC 2013 ~ by Mr. John McKenzie

I am excited! I don’t know about you, but whenever I see a programme for a festival or conference, I am excited about two things. One thing is the new learning that the programme seems to offer and the second thing are the new people that I will get to know. Even at my ripe old age, I look forward to another learning journey, a journey where one never arrives! So, I want to share with you my excitement about AFCC 2013. Firstly, as a Kiwi who comes from a rather remote island “down under,” the idea of focusing on a particular country is great! My experience of Malaysia is limited (other than a brief journey 30 odd years ago) so I am eager to hear Cinthia Koeskal tell her story in becoming a young adult writer and to explore the degree to which there are universal dilemmas in her novels that speak to young people across cultural boundaries. In a similar way, I want to explore the art works of  Yusof Gajah and negotiate any cultural particularities that speak of national identity. I have to admit that I am passionate about picture books and will have enormous pleasure searching the book stalls for new treasures like Emilia Yusof’s picture books. I am particularly interested in representations of folktale  and I look forward then to the Malaysian focus during the Festival.

My love of the visual means that I always look for novels that include images as much as narrative, especially for an older audience. For example, when I read in the AFCC web-based review of Dianne Wolfer’s book Light Horse Boy that “the story is told via text and letters, interspersed with stunning charcoal sketches by Brian Simmonds, primary source documents and historical photographs,” I know I have to go knocking on the door The Plaza, National Library on 28^th May at lunchtime and enjoy hearing about this book that is to be launched on this occasion. To add depth to my understanding of the picture book, the sessions on the art of the picture book by Patrick Yee and Julia Kaergel, the paper engineering session by Joseph Tan  and the exploration of graphic novels by Wolfgang Bylsma, Paolo Chikiamco  and Sonny Liew are all high on my agenda.

However, what I really appreciate about AFCC is the chance to go in depth as part of the AFCC Seminars and Master Classes where a full day can be spent on professional development. This year, a newish door is being opened up to me through the work of Kate McCallum and the idea and practices of transmedia productions. We live in an age of multi-literacies whereby story is presented though many platforms thanks to digital technologies. From film to computer games, web pages to phone applications, story is now visualised as moving images. The questions that are in my mind are, what is gained and what is lost though this complex interweaving of media; how can children become active creators as well as engaged participants? I am sure Kate will passionately share her knowledge and perspective on this.

I look forward to my return to Singapore. The warmth of the hosts (as much as the weather), my sense of safety and comfort in wandering around the many shops and spaces of Singapore and above all the friendliness of previous visitors as much as strangers makes all the difference. If you see a slightly balding old fella with a Kiwi accent, say hello!

As a Principal lecturer at the University of Canterbury College of Education, John McKenzie designed and implemented the graduate level Diploma in Children’s Literature. He has many conference papers to his credit and is involved in the development of literacy qualifications in South Africa. He received the Betty Gilderdale Award for services to NZ children’s literature.

Head on over to Saffron Tree’s blog and read their latest post A Celebration of Dragons in Children’s Literature. Make sure to scroll down the page and read their recent interview with Anushka Ravishankar too. Known as India’s Dr. Suess, Anushka has written more than twenty-five books—verse, fiction and non-fiction—many of which have been translated into several languages. We’ve reviewed some of her books here and here and had the pleasure of meeting her at the 2011 Asian Festival of Children’s Content. We’re excited to announce that PaperTigers’ Editor Marjorie Coughlan will be joining Anushka and author/editor Daphne Lee from Malaysia at the 2013 AFCC and hosting a session entitled Asian Themes in Children’s Books. For details, click here.

PaperTigers is a proud sponsor of the Asian Festival of Children’s Content, an annual event held  in Singapore that brings together content creators and producers with parents, teachers, librarians and anyone interested in quality Asian content for children around the world. Dates for the 2013 AFCC have been announced – May 25th  – 30th , and festival organizer, The National Book Development Council of Singapore, is hard at work ensuring that this year’s program is equally, perhaps even more so, inspiring than previous years. The AFCC website has recently been relaunched and details for the 2013 festival are being added daily. Early bird registration has begun and the call for submissions has gone out for the Book Illustrators Gallery.

Both Marjorie and I plan on attending this year’s AFCC and will be speaking in several of the sessions. I was blessed to be able to attend the 2011 AFCC and have been counting down the months until I could return. It will be such a thrill to reconnect with old friends and make new ones all while being immersed in the world of Asian children’s literature! If you are able, do try to attend. It may take a wee bit of time to travel to Singapore but it will definitely be worth the effort!

(Read PaperTigers’ July 2011 issue to learn more about my time at the 2011 Asian Festival of Childrens Content).

As 2012 draws to a close and I reflect on our website themes over the past year, one of my favorites was The Theme of Water in Multicultural Children’s Books . We decided to do this focus in part because of the crucial role that water plays in our WaterBridge Outreach project (WBO) which provides donations of new multicultural children’s books to schools and libraries, while engaging with local communities to obtain access to clean water in areas of need throughout the world. In his recent PaperTigers 10th Anniversary article,  Executive Director Dr. Peter Coughlan wrote about the history of PaperTigers and how WBO came to be:

The most recent development in the PaperTigers story is – alongside the main site and the blog, which continue through from the second and third phases – WaterBridge Outreach, as summed up in the phrase Books+Water: Nourishing the Mind and Body. This springs from the desire firstly, to put books into the hands of children, especially in areas of need around the world – multicultural books that children can enjoy and that help open young minds and hearts to the world beyond their immediate experience. Secondly, I have been lecturing for some time at a college of the University of London in the area of applied ethics and, specifically, about the challenges facing our world at the nexus of water, food and energy in the context of climate change/global warming. Literacy and reading yes, but the lack of clean water and basic sanitation is a significant impediment to education, especially the education of girls, in too many parts of the world. Thinking about this led to the decision to expand our programs in 2009/2010 under the banner of PaperTigers: Books+Water, thus including not only the PaperTigers site and blog but also the practical WaterBridge Outreach programs – books and water here being specific expressions of the insight that education and the meeting of basic human needs must move forward together.

Since WBO’s inception we have been involved in various water projects in :

Matènwa Community Learning Center ~ Lagonav, Haiti

Tamilnadu ViIlage Outreach (TVO) Tuition Schools ~ Tamilnadu, India 

and Kiphire, Nagaland, India

As we move into 2013 we hope to further develop our projects in the above-mentioned areas as well as look at the possible development of similar projects in Guatemala and South Sudan, and work with Navajo and Hopi colleagues in education about water and water needs in Native American areas of Arizona. Dr. Coughlan will be going to Nagaland and Tamil Nadu in December this year to develop our projects, and our Outreach Coordinator Theresa Gee will be going to Arizona. Writers Gail Tsukiyama and Mary Roach will be joining Dr. Coughlan in India – the beginnings of an initiative that Gail hopes to develop as Writers for WaterBridge Outreach.

Exciting news for the coming year is that 2013 has been declared the United Nations International Year of the Water! The year will highlight the history of successful water cooperation initiatives, as well as identify issues on water education, water diplomacy, transboundary water management, financing cooperation, national/international legal frameworks, and more!  Community and school programs in many countries will include reading, performing and creating water-themed stories. Water-themed children’s stories will also be highlighted at the 2013 Asian Festival of Children’s Content in Singapore under the banner Project Splash Asia!  PaperTigers is working with The National Book Development Council of Singapore (NBDCS) and Dr. Myra Garces-Bacsal to compile a bibliography of favourite water-themed children’s stories from or about the Asian region. If you have a title to suggest we would love to hear from you! Email me at corinne(at)papertigers(dot)org

With our current PaperTigers issue focusing on the theme of Water in Multicultural Children’s Books and with water playing a crucial role in our Spirit of PaperTigers Outreach (read yesterday’s post to learn more), I was thrilled to learn that water-themed children’s stories will also be highlighted at next year’s Asian Festival of Children’s Content in Singapore!

Project Splash Asia! AFCC 2013

Next year will be the United Nations International Year of Water.

Community and school programmes in many countries will include reading, performing and creating water-themed stories.

Share your favourite stories that have water as a theme, such as Wave by Suzy Lee (California US: Chronicle Books, 2008), Amansinaya-Goddess of the Sea, by Eugene Evasco and Jomike Tejido (illustrator) (Philippines: LG&M, 2007), The Wakame Gatherers by Holly Thompson and Kazumi Wilds (illustrator) (California US: Shen’s Books, 2007), and Water Tales From Around the World (India: Tulika Publishers, 2010).

Project Splash Asia! aims to publish a bibliography and collection of favourite water-themed children’s stories from or about the region for AFCC 2013.

The National Book Development Council of Singapore (NBDCS) hopes the compilation of a bibliography of children’s stories around a universal theme will be a regular project for AFCC to showcase the diversity of talents and children’s literature in the region.

For suggestions and enquiries, please email afcc@bookcouncil.sg.