According to the UN, “Every two weeks a language disappears taking with it an entire cultural and intellectual heritage.” Humanity is facing a linguistic diversity crisis even as it faces the biodiversity crisis. How can we help? For starters, we can #NameTheTranslator. Books authored in English circle the globe now, making it harder for authors … Continue reading New Year’s Resolution: #NameTheTranslator
Marcia Lynx Qualey is a Rabat, Morocco-based translator from Arabic and an all-around champion of #worldkidlit—in fact, she coined the term! Previously based in Cairo, Marcia co-founded #WorldKidLit Month (September) with Alexandra Büchler and Lawrence Schimel in 2016, creating a platform to discuss translations into English for children—especially translations from underrepresented languages and cultures. The … Continue reading #WorldKidLit Wednesday: Meet Reviewer Marcia Lynx Qualey
“They had fed him these sinister thoughts dressed up with noble phrases . . . It was only once they’d settled deep inside you that they grew and grew, and started to suck away at your soul.” These lines from the novel The Raven’s Children by Yulia Yakovleva, translated from the Russian by Ruth Ahmedzai … Continue reading #WorldKidLit Wednesday: The Raven’s Children
Laura Taylor is on a years-long mission to read picture books from every country in the world. How’s that for ambition? Inspired by Ann Morgan, this busy writer, translator from French into English, and mother of two has: established the Planet Picture Book blog and social media pages in 2017. posted throughout #WorldKidLit Month here … Continue reading #WorldKidLit Wednesday: Meet Reviewer Laura Taylor
“So—are you saying that our souls can be knocked down like houses?” “Yes, my wise girl,” she says. “Our souls can crumble when we don’t care about our neighbors, or when we say hateful things about others, or exclude people for being different.” This exchange between eleven-year-old Chilean Celeste Marconi and her mother, in … Continue reading #WorldKidLit Wednesday: I Lived on Butterfly Hill
When a boy calls young Nora “flamingo legs,” a magic bubble wand tells her that he secretly likes her. When a girl says, “I’m telling everyone not to play with you,” the wand reveals that the girl feels blue when she can't have Nora all to herself. Could it be that lots of what people … Continue reading #WorldKidLit Wednesday: Nora the Mind Reader
How sweet is a picture book where the villain gets foiled *and* gets mooncakes? Happy Mid-Autumn Festival is that book. Ssshhh, don’t spoil the ending like I just did. To savor thoroughly, read aloud with a toddler-through-early elementary student who, at first glance, sees nothing more than a book about a holiday. Ho-hum. Your young … Continue reading #WorldKidLitWednesday: Happy Mid-Autumn Festival
What? A fiction title for grown-ups on #WorldKidLit Wednesday? Yes, Ms. Ice Sandwich by Mieko Kawakami, translated from Japanese by Louise Heal Kawai, works as adult, young adult, AND middle grade reading. Why? This slim import from the U.K.’s Pushkin Press, released Stateside by Penguin Random House, features a fourth-grade boy as main character and … Continue reading #WorldKidLit Wednesday: Ms. Ice Sandwich
I love a sweet first-love story. Here’s one set in Mexico in summer that is bound to charm a middle grader near you. The Wild Book by Juan Villoro, translated by Lawrence Schimel, features a thirteen-year-old boy named Juan whose summer begins in the worst possible way: with news of his parents’ divorce. He learns … Continue reading #WorldKidLit Wednesday: The Wild Book
“In life, as onstage, if you do nothing, then nothing happens.” So begins the chapter “Puppets Alive” in Playing a Part by Daria Wilke, translated from the Russian by Marian Schwartz. This chapter portrays an act of protest inside a Moscow theater: a new puppet master, devoted to marionette making but aware that he gained … Continue reading #WorldKidLit Wednesday: Playing a Part
Global Literature in Libraries Initiative 