BOOKS-AFRICA: Publishing for Children

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

L. Muthoni Wanyeki

NAIROBI, Jun 25 1996 (IPS) - School-children sit cross-legged on the floor in a tent, entranced by the words and drumming of the storyteller.

He ends to their applause and asks if they have any questions. His audience fidgets shyly, but eventually a girl stands up and asks why he started telling stories.

“Where I come from, story-telling is history and we think it’s important to keep it alive and well,” explains Madafu, an African- American storyteller. “Also I see your eyes light up while you’re listening, and your laughing makes me happy.”

The Children’s Reading Tent stood among publishers’ stalls at the fifth annual Pan-African Children’s Book Fair held here earlier this month. It exhibited publications ranging from activity books, educational and religious texts, traditional and modern storybooks and short novels aimed at children and teenagers.

Although nowhere near the scale of the annual Zimbabwean book fair, one of Africa’s biggest, the fair drew 40 African publishing houses from 10 countries. Publishers from India, the Philippines, Japan and Colombia were also represented.

“The book fair has grown immensely, from two countries when it began in 1992 to this,” said Mary Bugembe, book fair co-ordinator from the Foundation for the Promotion of Children’s Science Publications in Africa (CHISCI). “I think the idea touches everyone’s heart — everyone wants to see her child read.”

“Here, children’s authors and publishers are exposed to materials from other regions — not just folk tales, because we’re a rapidly changing society and the question is how to reflect that change to children,” she continues. “The beauty about it this year is that we’ve brought in people from outside the continent who have been very successful in regional publishing for children and who have exciting new ideas for African publishers.”

One of the biggest problems facing African publishers is how to market books in countries where literacy rates and buying power remain low. Adult literacy for sub-Saharan Africa was calculated at 55 percent in 1992, according to the U.N. Development Programme’s (UNDP) 1995 report.

“One of the biggest issues that came out this year, stressed by the participant from the Philippines, is that publishers have to get involved in promoting reading,” noted Bugembe. “We can’t just publish and expect people to buy the books. We have to be part of the push to inculcate a reading and science culture in children at an early age.”

“We need ways to say books are our friends,” she said. “It’s a painful thing for many African parents to buy books which are associated with school, exams and expenditure when there are so many other priorities.”

As a result, publishers are trying to make their wares more user-friendly by using a diversity of languages.

In Ethiopia for instance, the Educational Material Production and Distribution Association (EDPDA) publishes mainly in Amharic, the official language. But in trying to represent the country’s entire population, the association also publishes in the East African state’s 16 other languages, as well as in English.

Lake Publishers Limited, a small Kenyan company, located in Kisumu on the shores of Lake Victoria has the same philosophy and publishes in English and Kiswahili, as well as in Kenya’s five major languages.

“People don’t take their mother-tongues seriously,” comments Moses Okech, sales representative with Lake Publishers. “Children’s literature has been neglected by the industry and children’s literature in our mother-tongues is even more neglected. These are our languages, and we shouldn’t let them die.”

South Africa’s small Ithemba (‘hope’) Publishers prints storybooks with texts in one of the nine national indigenous languages as well as either English or Afrikaans. It is also re- printing these books in translation — into Kiswahili, French and German — so as to market them abroad.

“The language issue is vital for us,” said S. Bronwen Jones of Ithemba. During the apartheid regime, he said, “people thought they could throw any old garbage to black kids. So we’re trying to appeal to African children, who may speak at least three languages. Also, with South Africa opening up, it’s extremely important now to be patriotic — to buy South African, and to take South African products overseas, which is why we’re doing the other languages.”

Another way to prompt sales, according to participants at the fair, is innovation.

“We have to think about not forcing parents to buy, but allowing them to get intimate with books,” Bugembe explained. “We move the Children’s Reading Tent around the country on a monthly basis, setting up wherever, even under trees. What I like is that children then come with their parents. So we’re helping create a reading culture based in the home, rather than in the schools.”

“Along the same lines, I’d like to see local bookstores create browsing areas, and publishers set up reading rooms,” she continued. “Libraries don’t have to be physical structures. We must be innovative to attract parents, and not too serious to attract children.”

Books’ aesthetic value is also crucial, especially for younger children, who often will pore over pictures for hours, imagining the stories behind them and thus be more interested in hearing the actual accompanying stories.

“For me, being here has made me realize that illustration is very important,” said Okech. “The Southern Africans have very attractive books. Kenyan publishers have tended to assume the content is more important.”

“Images appeal to children,” agreed Jones, whose company’s books are beautifully illustrated by young South African artists on glossy paper and in full colour. “The illustrations are realistic and relevant culturally and we also try to incorporate extra messages for kids to figure out — such as single figures visually representing proverbs or Aesop’s fables. They are in the background of the main illustration, but add something special for kids to think about.”

“But I’m also impressed with local publishers here, who’ve managed to reproduce simple illustrations quite nicely, using cheap paper and no colour,” she added. “Because it keeps the costs low — no matter what the kids like, the parents buy what they can afford. That’s something for us to take home.”

Judging by the crowds of school-children who attended, this year’s children’s book fair was a success. The children came from all class backgrounds, but their shared pleasure was evident.

“African publishers have focused on text-books for children, and shied away from locally-written storybooks,” commented Bugembe. “But they’ve been wrong to do so, because there is a huge interest and a huge market. This shows it.”