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Best Reads from the Philippines at the 3^rd Asian Festival of Children’s Content ~ by Tarie Sabido

Part 1 of 3

May 26 to 29 was the 3^rd Asian Festival of Children’s Content (AFCC) in Singapore, and this year the festival highlighted children’s books from the Philippines! The Philippine booth at the festival showcased the six winners of the 1^st Philippine National Children’s Book Awards along with other fiction and nonfiction picture books from leading Philippine publishers Tahanan Books, Adarna House, Bookmark, Lampara Books, Anvil, and CANVAS. I am very happy and proud to report that visitors to the booth oohed and aahed over all the book illustrations!

One of the featured panel discussions at the AFCC was “Trajectories and Themes in Children’s Literature from the Philippines,” with the popular and award-winning children’s book creators Russell Molina (Philippines), Jomike Tejido (Philippines), Candy Gourlay (UK/Philippines), and Isabel Roxas (US/Philippines). With joy and verve, Russell, Jomike, Candy, and Isabel set up for the audience a window to the Philippine children’s literature scene. Russell announced that it was more fun writing children’s books in the Philippines because the entire community loves stories and participates in storytelling. Some of the stories the Filipino community loves to share are about our modern-day heroes: hardworking overseas Filipino workers and the families they support in the Philippines. Jomike introduced the wide variety of illustrations for Philippine traditional picture books (legends and folk tales), contemporary picture books, informative picture books, and pop picture books (urban culture-based picture books). In the Philippines, illustrations for children include everything from fine art that also appeals to adults and intricate collage, to abstract art and digital work this is e-book and app-ready.

Candy told the story of how she learned that she shouldn’t write what she knows, she should write who she is! For years, Candy wrote stories that did not feature the Philippines or Filipino characters. These stories were all rejected by publishers in the UK and she was not published until she realized that being Filipino was part of what made her an interesting writer, and that a story with a distinctly Filipino perspective is a special story. Lastly, Isabel talked about her advantages and disadvantages as a Filipino illustrator in the US. Her advantages include the Internet as a great equalizer, all the uncovered territory in picture books, and of course, her unique Filipino point of view. Her disadvantages include her lack of a network in the US, greater competition, and readers’ lack of exposure to Philippine culture. Fortunate

Dear friends of Illustration Friday, I do hope you will forgive my blatant misuse of this site for my own selfish purposes of "hawking my wares". I can honestly say that these favorites of mine have been on the shelf getting "Dusty" for way too long. So with a little help from IF, I would like to introduce you to them. These are my Tree People Bookmarks Apple Man, Teresa, Bird Man, Lady of the

This is a little book mark I made for a kindergarten class that read my book, Moon Ladder (written by Rhonda Simard). If anyone is interested in the high resolution file for printout, email me and I'll send a copy.

You can now download and print your very own Just One More Book!! bookmark. Click on the image of the bookmark that appears just below the image of our brochure in the left sidebar.

We’ve also updated the list of books reviewed on Just One More Book!! To download the PDF, click on the image immediately to the right of this text.

Thanks, again, to Nico at Snowy Day Design for his brilliant design work and to Vivian of the CLIP Podcast for the booklist idea and the nudge to get an updated version out!