The main theme of the 2012 Congress is Crossing Boundaries: Translations and Migrations. Participants will explore how books and stories for children and young people can cross boundaries and migrate across different countries and cultures. The congress will look at issues such as globalisation, dual-language texts, cultural exchange and the art of translation. The programme outline has just been released and can be seen here.

Marjorie’s paper, Escaping Conflict, Seeking Peace: picture books that relate refugee stories, draws attention to picture books in English from around the world about children and young people who have been forced from their homes because of conflict. These are important stories that need to be told, whether they are biographical or fictionalised accounts, for understanding of the past, healing in the present, and hope for the future. Her paper arose in part from PaperTigers’ August 2010 issue that focused on Refugee Children and the abstract for her paper can be read here….

These days we hear statistics bandied about for every aspect of our lives. We have become inured to ever-larger numbers being thrown at us on both domestic and international news. It is often hard to envisage what these figures actually represent in real terms – and when they represent people caught up in a disaster somewhere far away on the other side of the globe, the sheer size of what we are hearing can be insidiously numbing. How, then, to make sense of them? And how do we help children to take on board their human significance, without inflicting on them their trauma-inducing enormity? The answer is books. Thankfully, there is an increasing availability of quality writing for children and young adults, which draws out individual stories of young people caught up in disasters not of their making. These books provide a well-researched background giving readers insight into events that can either be pinpointed in history or are a realistic representation of what it means to be a refugee. They promote empathy, a thirst to know more and an urge to do something. Picture books provide visual impact: illustrations often provide a link with the cultures represented, through the style or artistic techniques adopted and in some cases take the place of words. Picture books provide access to difficult stories, not only for young children but also for older children and teenagers: in recent years, there has been a noticeable growth in picture books aimed at teenagers, with high quality artwork that challenges and demands a reaction.

This paper will draw attention to both the narrative and artwork in picture books about children whose lives have been turned upside down by conflict. Examples will be given of books set in different cultures and countries around the world, and published in English in Australia, Canada, the UK and the US for young people of all ages. Some are fictional with a factual background; others are partly autobiographical or draw on personal experience. Some are historical; some are about the here and now. Some provide an almost overwhelming indictment of human suffering inflicted by adult fellow-humans – but, and it is a big but for the young readers of these stories, are also an inspiring testimony to the resourcefulness and resilience of children; and others focus on the equally important and relevant issues of welcome (or lack of it) and settling in to a new country/culture/community. One aspect all these stories have in common, however, regardless of varying degrees of bleakness through the course of the book, is that they sow a seed of hope for the future. Books provide a bridge of understanding across the world and they also create openings for empathy and understanding within communities. Stories help people step outside their own spheres and see the world through others eyes, even the world on their doorstep. A book can sow the seed for social justice even in very young children, on whom the future of our world depends.

Youme,
Mali Under the Night Sky: A Lao Story of Home
Cinco Puntos Press, 2010.

Age 6-9

In Mali Under the Night Sky, Youme beautifully renders the true story of Malichansouk Kouanchao, who, the flyleaf tells us, “walked from Laos to Thailand when she was five years old.” Bordered watercolor paintings capture the simple beauty of her early life in Laos—napping with her family, catching tiny fish in the rice paddies, making spicy traditional foods with her aunts—with key words translated into Romanized Lao as well as the original Lao script.

“But something was changing where Mali lived…Fighting in neighboring countries was bringing danger to the land and the people. Even the birds were disappearing.” Youme pictures a child at the edge of her house, the wide space beyond empty to the horizon. It’s not safe to stay any longer. After a leave-taking that includes the traditional tying of strings around the wrists of each departing family member, Mali, her parents and siblings cross the broad Mekong, offering ritual flowers and rice with prayers for safety. They are met the next day by soldiers and are imprisoned with other refugees. Things look dark, but the strings on her wrists remind Mali of her home, and when she tells the others her happy memories, “their hearts were safe…soag sai—blessings.”

The real Mali, now a beautiful young woman, is pictured on the front flyleaf along with an introduction to her present work as an artist and anti-war advocate. At the back of the book, one of her paintings is reproduced beside her message to young readers: “…when we share about where we have come from, we all find that our homes are safe in our hearts…” A further statement by Oscar-nominated documentary filmmaker Thavisouk Phrasavath describes the effects of war on children and how books like Youme’s about Mali are a balm to heal those traumas.

Cinco Puntos Press has made a significant contribution in publishing Mali Under the Night Sky. Its tender images and heartfelt words will touch children everywhere. While it ends with Mali in prison, young readers also learn of her subsequent success in life and dedication to healing the wounds of war. The book’s value to Laotian families in diaspora is of course incalculable.

Charlotte Richardson
June 2011

These children have already had their worlds torn apart and witnessed their parents in turmoil and in stress. No wonder that paediatricians and psychologists report that child detainees are confused, fearful, unable to sleep, suffer headaches, tummy pains and weight loss and exhibit severe emotional and behavioural problems.

The same newspaper reports how an Anglican priest dressed as St Nicholas/Father Christmas to deliver presents to children at an immigration removal centre was refused entry.

the increasingly angry security guards called the police. The resulting ill-tempered and surreal impasse between church and state was videotaped by asylum seeker support groups and could become an internet viral hit.

I’ll certainly add a link to it when it becomes available…

How appalling this is. Perhaps every state official who has anything to do with asylum seekers should have to read something like Home and Away by John Marsden and Matt Ottley as part of their training…