All children deserve stories about themselves
In February we celebrate World Read Aloud Day (5 February) and International Mother Language Day (21 February).
It is critical that children read in their mother tongue, so we need more storybooks in local languages to ensure all children can develop a love of reading. We have written a paper called 'African children deserve stories about themselves' exploring the intersecting roles of African authors, illustrators, communities, and languages in story creation: http://www.earlyliteracynetwork.org/content/african-children-deserve-stories-about-themselves-intersecting-roles-african-authors.
This paper focuses on storybooks that children read for enjoyment because of their positive impact on academic success and also because these stories underpin the sustainability of a viable reading culture.
Here are some links to find openly licensed storybooks and reading resources to read aloud in some of the 7,000 living languages:
- Book Dash storybooks https://bookdash.org/books/
- Room to Read South Africa's storybooks http://onedayonebook.org/
- Molteno's Vula Bula resources https://vulabula.molteno.co.za
- African Storybook https://africanstorybook.org
- StoryWeaver https://storyweaver.org.in
- Global Digital Library https://digitallibrary.io/
Let us know how you will be celebrating your mother-tongue language this month. Will you be writing a story to share on African Storybook or StoryWeaver? Will you translate a story into your mother-tongue language so that somebody can read aloud in their own language?
