Our thanks go out once again to Jenny Desmond-Walters, Regional Advisor for SCBWI – Korea, for letting us know about another fabulous literature project taking place in Korea: Ollybolly.

Ollybolly is a cultural diversity program carried out by the Daum Foundation which “focuses on building a cultural foundation of mutual respect and understanding among people from all walks of life” and “seeks to provide resources for the next generation in order to promote creative and diverse ways of life through the use of media and communications.”

One of the Ollybolly projects is the  recently created Online Picture Book project. This project allows anyone with internet access to watch animated picture book  stories from several countries including Mongolia, Vietnam and the Philippines. The stories are all folktales and can be heard in English, Korean or their original language. Korean and English subtitles are also provided. Plans are in place to have over 170 books online by December and to include stories from Africa, South America and West Asia. Click here to see the list and start watching. I guarantee you will be enthralled not only by the wonderful stories themselves but also by their amazing illustrations!

The Ollybolly website says:

The Ollybolly Online Picture Book allows the next generation to experience stories from countries whose children’s books are not very well known by physical publication, especially in Korea.  The project is designed to increase young people’s sensitivity towards cultural diversity.  At the same time it will encourage them to communicate and live harmoniously with people from other parts of the world.

The Daum Foundation believes that differences are not the cause of discrimination and exclusion; rather, they are a source of creativity. We hope that the key holders of tomorrow will be imbued with wonderment and the positive values of diversity through their enjoyment of the Ollybolly Online Picture Book.

Summertime is for festivals in Canada, and one of the most entertaining is the Fringe.  In Winnipeg, this year’s Fringe Festival had an interesting production for kids called African Folktales. This one-person story-telling play was performed by South African Erik de Waal.  It brought to mind books my sister sent me when she was working in Sudan: Stories from Africa 1 and 2 by Lawrence Darmani and Talata’s Party Dress and Other Stories by Eirene Akua Agyepong published by African Christian Press.  It was a delight to receive these Ghanaian produced books and read them to my children.

After seeing African Folktales, my daughter requested a rereading of the story “Monkey Escapes” from Stories from Africa 2.  In this tale, Monkey uses his wits to escape from Crocodile, whose intent, of course, is to eat Monkey.   My daughter is fond of animal stories but I found the other tales about humans in the book compelling like the one entitled ” Amadu, Alale and Adama”  This story is about three friends, each of whom suffer from something — Amadu is lame, Alale, blind and Adama, poor.  One day a stranger comes who changes their lives.  The story is a loosely veiled parable with a moral at the end.  It reminded me of one of the things children’s books do, namely, aid in spiritual formation by creating awareness and edifying the reader.

When I was a young, beginning reader, I lived in a small town in Canada’s north.  Occasionally my father would go to the city on business trips and bring back books.  One time he brought me a collection of stories from Africa similar to the one my sister sent.  I remember the animal stories quite well, but also recall ones about the people who lived there and who learned spiritual truths about life.  Obviously the intended readers for these books were Africans, but such books had their own influence even in a far flung corner of northern Canada where I lived.  Were there any books you read when growing up that had a lasting influence on the way you perceived the world?