With a generation of toddlers growing up on endless loops of YouTube videos, actually played out on smartphones, the gap in the children’s book sector is an exciting and creative space.
What do we want from children’s books? Of course, a combination of entertainment and information would hit the right spot.
The children’s book market is still growing exponentially as parents and caregivers try to stimulate and encourage a child’s nascent imagination, finding new ways to teach while having fun.
It’s definitely a huge challenge, considering the odds against books — colourful moving pictures vying for attention on digital screens, loud and repetitive music in streaming services so common in all homes today, and the fluorescent toys inspired by cartoon characters — books do have a tough fight ahead of them.
It doesn’t have to be this way. Educational psychologists have often asserted that of the VAK (visual, auditory and kinesthetic) learning styles, the visual was the most common, with more than 88 per cent of young learners seen to learn more actively when using the visual medium. As such, pitching books with large visuals, colourful drawings and a combination of known and new vocabulary could go a long way in making a child’s interest in books a lifelong passion.
But none of this is likely to work if the books introduced to children say or show nothing of the culture in which they live. Fairy tales of blond girls with blue eyes may be attractive at first sight, but if children cannot see themselves in their stories, they are likely to lose interest and learning can become an uphill task.
It is a reality that children’s writers in Sultanate of Oman are also very aware of Jane Jaffer MBE, a poet, novelist and educator who has done much to encourage reading among children in Sultanate of Oman through her popular ‘Let’s Read Programme’, recently published a children’s book ‘Raifi’s Amazing Dinosaur Adventure’ which received much adulation.
A bilingual book with the story in English and Arabic, it was translated into Arabic by Maythaa al Mandhari, a passionate story teller who lent her experience of interacting with Omani children to this book on an eternal favourite with children: dinosaurs.
‘Raifi’s Amazing Dinosaur Adventure’ is a tale born out of the pandemic. Taking off from her three-year-old grandson’s passion for dinosaurs, Jaffer narrates the adventures of a young boy Raifi who comes across a cave while walking along the Al Hajar Mountains. There, he sees a baby dinosaur, Iggy, and together they walk along and find other, larger dinosaurs. Some are vegetarian with spikes on their back while others are huge and fly. The short story ends with information on various kinds of dinosaurs as well as photographs of bones now exhibited in The Natural History Museum in Muscat.
The book is targeted at very young learners who could be told the story, with large colourful paintings by the author herself. At the same time, it is also an early-stage reading book which children can use to learn to spell, using strategies like repetition and dialogue. Simple in narrative with short crisp sentences and plenty of action, the story gradually introduces more complex words and concepts.
What adds charm to this book is the fact that it is bilingual. Both ends of the book open up to the story, and both use vocabulary and information building strategies for a range of readers. In this way, this book is also targeted at second or third language learners of Arabic who can practice the script, enjoy the story and build upon their Arabic vocabulary.
Translating the book, Maythaa says, was an adventure in itself.
“I had to decide what words I should translate and what to leave as it is (like sandwich),” she said, adding that she would often take each sentence to translate separately before reading the whole story to make sure it made sense.
Speaking of the bilingual nature, Jaffer says, “There’s nothing like reading in your own language, so this time I decided to make the book bilingual as children would like to have something that reflects their own life”.
She further added that having a good Omani translator made the book very relatable to children as the Arabic which was used was closer to that used in the Sultanate of Oman. Jane and Maythaa both also hope to continue on this adventure of writing and translating, opening the window to different worlds and cultures, while introducing Sultanate of Oman to the world.
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