Over the past few months the PaperTigers’ website has been focusing on the theme of Water in Multicultural Children’s Books. If you haven’t visited the site lately do check it out and see what treasures we have 
compiled . Highlights include:
Interviews with:
Dutch photographer Taco Anema who tells us all about his project that took him around the world photographing children and water and resulted in his beautiful book Tales of Water.
Acclaimed author Linda Sue Park who talks with us about her award-winning book A Long Walk to Water.
The Illustrators’ Gallery which features the work of :
Acclaimed Indian artist Pulak Biswas.
Chinese artist Li Jian.
Water illustrations selected from previous PaperTigers Gallery features.
Personal Views:
A River of Stories: Water-Themed Stories for Multicultural Readers by Alice Curry (who we had a lovely chance meeting with at the 2012 Bologna Children’s Book Fair)
My Water Story by Deepa Balsavar
Book of the Month:
One Arm Point Remote Community School,
Our World: Bardi Jaawi, Life at Ardiyooloon
Magabala Books, 2010.
A stunning, encyclopaedic book put together by the children from the One Arm Point Remote Community School at Ardiyooloon in Western Australia, along with their School Culture Team, School Staff, and Community Elders, as well as others from the local community.
Be sure also to pay a visit to the PaperTigers Outreach site a
Continuing our Water in Multicultural Children’s Literature theme, we have two new features on the PaperTigers website.
A River of Stories: Water-Themed Stories for Multicultural Readers, a Personal View by Alice Curry, in which she discusses the superb anthology A River of Stories: Tales and Poems from Across the Commonwealth, she compiled recently, illustrated by Jan Pieńkowski and published by the Commonwealth Education Trust. Here’s the opening to whet your appetite:
On the southern-most tip of Africa, the lonely Zulu goddess of rain, Mbaba Mwana Waresa, searches for love amongst mortal men, rainbows glistening in her wake. On the northern-most tip of Canada, the solitary Ice King guards his wintry lair yet dreams, secretly, of warmer climes. On the tropical shores of Australia, old man Mookari, god of the storm, rattles into town before stealing, quietly, away. In Nigeria, the impetuous water god, Olokun, paces the shining floors of his underwater palace, whilst in Ghana, the goddess Mawu transforms herself into a waterfall to nourish the parched and thirsty earth.
Water gods and goddesses, spirits and deities have fuelled our imaginations and nourished our beliefs since the beginning of time. Not only is water a vital physical presence in our lives, but also a powerfully imaginative and symbolic source of inspiration for writers and storytellers everywhere. In our increasingly threatened world, in which climate-related natural disasters are a daily reality for much of the world’s population, water-themed stories are an important and relevant way of encouraging sustainable, respectful and empathic attitudes towards the environment. It is currently estimated that half of the world’s population will be living under severe water stress by 2030; for today’s children, the conservation of a healthy natural environment has become a development issue of the highest priority.
Now head on over and read the rest of the article…
View work by acclaimed artist Pulak Biswas in our Gallery, including illustrations from his most recent book The Flute written by Rachna Gilmore (Tradewind Books, 2011)…
