19 February 2021
Share your mother tongue reading resources on International Mother Language Day 2021
By Leanne Rencken
Take a look at these links and discover openly licensed storybooks and reading resources that are available in some of the world's 7,000 living languages:
- Room to Read South Africa's storybooks
- Room to Read’s Peace and Equality collection
- Molteno's Vula Bula resources
- African Storybook
- StoryWeaver
- Global Digital Library
- Book Dash
- Ubongo
Despite the availability of these resources, we need more storybooks in local languages to ensure all children can learn to read in their mother tongue, identify with characters that look and 'sound' just like them, and develop a love of reading. Kirsty von Gogh and Lisbeth Levey 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, download and read the paper here.