Born and raised in the USA, Elsa Marston is a children’s author who specializes in books, both fiction and non-fiction, about the Middle East. “A lot of my writing is about the Middle East and Arab-Americans.” says Elsa. “That’s because my late husband, Iliya Harik, was from Lebanon; family connections and his work as a political scientist (Indiana University) took us to that part of the world many times. I want to share with young readers my own interest in those lands and peoples, and equally important, help contribute to better understanding of the Arab/Muslim world. In that way I hope to continue Iliya’s life’s work, along with my own.”
From June 12 to the 14, Elsa will be attending an international conference on children’s literature in Beirut, Lebanon and told us:
I think this is the first time anything quite like this, at least with this scale and scope, has been done in the Arab countries, although there are IBBY chapters in Lebanon and Palestine and probably elsewhere. The preliminary program looks very interesting… an idea of some of the concerns that are gradually starting to take hold in the literature of that part of the world. Up till very recently, literature for children and teens consisted mostly of translations of European fairy tales and simplified western novels, and Arabian Nightsy stories. The idea that fiction for young people could reflect the lives of those young people and their societies had not quite caught on. (It must be admitted, the same thing was true here with respect to the Middle East, until about a dozen years ago! And that’s basically what I’ll be talking about.)
Elsa expects the conference to be largely in Arabic, with English and French mixed in liberally; and program highlights include:
Day #1
1st session: Social and Cultural Environment in Children’s Books
Illustration of Children’s Books in Italy (Italian speaker)
Illustration of Children’s Books in Sudan
2nd session: Representation of Conflict in Children’s Books
Beverley Naidoo speaking about conflict and resolution in her own work (re South Africa)
Conflict and the Enemy Image in Syrian Children’s Books
Palestinian Children’s Books: Occupation, Violence, Displacement
Day #2
1st Session: Influence of Censorship on Writing
Censoring Children’s Books in Nazi Germany and After the War (German speaker)
Censoring Children’s books in Iraq’s Past Regime
2nd session: The Role of the Family in Children’s Books
Effect of New Teaching Methods on Children’s Books in France (French speaker)
The Role of Family in Tunisian Children’s Books
The Role of Family Members in Lebanese Children’s Books
Day #3:
1st session: Art and Imagination in Children’s Books
Illustrating War: Comparing an Egyptian and a Lebanese Book
Imagination in Lebanese Children’s Illustration
Impact of Color in Illustrated Books
2nd session: Artistic Structure
Collage in Children’s Drawings in Iran
The Birth of Snakedog (European speaker)
U.S. Literature for Young People About the Arab World (Elsa Marston)
We have just broken up from school for the holidays and our thoughts are turned towards Christmas next week. As well as reading Dickens’ A Christmas Carol together for the first time, which we all greatly enjoyed, we have been reading other stories with a Christmas setting, including two multicultural versions of the Nativity story, the birth of Jesus.
The first is The Road to Bethlehem: A Nativity Story from Ethiopia told by Elizabeth Laird (Collins, 1987). Elizabeth Laird has spent a lot of time in Ethiopia gathering stories from the oral tradition and her writing here certainly asks to be read aloud - not only is the story told simply with plenty of direct speech to bring it alive, but for those children who are familiar with the story from their own traditions, there is likely to be a good deal of intrigued discussion in which the differences are explored, including new characters and miracles.
The illustrations too are full of extra fascinating details - their vibrancy and appeal to young listeners/readers make it hard to take on board that they are taken from 200-year-old Ethiopian manuscripts in the British Library! Laird has added fascinating notes to each picture, which can be dipped into alongside reading the text - one Older Brother was particulary struck by was an episode on the Flight into Egypt showing arrowheads sticking out of the road to stop them: “but Mary took the hand of her Child, and walked through unharmed.”
The second book is one I blogged about last year but didn’t actually manage to share with my boys - however, we have now read together Ian Wallace’s beautifully illustrated version of The Huron Carol (Groundwood, 2006), based on an English translation of the Christmas carol written by a French Jesuit missionary, Father Jean de Brébeuf, for the Huron people in the 1600s. After reading through the first verse together line by line with its double-page-spread illustration, showing the people, landscapes and fauna of its Canadian roots, we have really enjoyed singing the whole carol from the music and words given at the end - in the original Huron, in French and in English. As we have pored over the familiar characters of the story in an unfamilar setting, and the baby Jesus wrapped in fur, surrounded by wolves and beavers, we have explored the reasons that the carol came into being.
We have all enjoyed sharing these books together - and any misgivings I might have had about confusing them with the different versions of what is to them a familiar story have been allayed - on the contrary, I believe their experience of the Christmas story has been enriched by them.
Another supplement to our January-February update on illustrators…
Whenever I browsed children’s books in Australia (I was there September-December, 2007), I was drawn to the vivid illustrations of award-winning Aboriginal artist and designer Bronwyn Bancroft, whose most recent books, published by Little Hare, are An Australian ABC of Animals (2005), Patterns of Australia (2006), and An Australian 123 of Animals (2007). Throughout Bronwyn’s multi-faceted career she has been raising consciousness about Aboriginal culture. Early on, she developed a line of textiles based on Aboriginal patterns that’s now in a museum collection (search here). She’s also an internationally recognized painter with work in many museum collections. Her painting, “You don’t even look Aboriginal,” inspired a widely-used classroom teaching unit in Australian schools.
Bronwyn’s first children’s book, The Fat and Juicy Place, written by Dianna Kidd, won the Australian Multicultural Children’s book award in 1993. Her illustrations of Stradbroke Dreamtime were the Australian candidate for UNICEF’s Ezra Jack Keats international award for excellence in children’s book illustrations. In this transcript of an inspiring 2004 Australian national television (ABC) profile, she talks about her early life and the development of her work, career, and mission.
