Abigail Sawyer regularly reviews books for us here at PaperTigers, and she’s also, in her own words, “a lifelong library lover and an advocate for access to books for all”, so who better to write an article for us about “unconventional libraries” and the children’s books they have inspired. Abigail lives in San Francisco, California, USA, where her two children attend a language-immersion elementary school and are becoming bilingual in English and Mandarin: an experience that has informed her work on the blog for the film Speaking in Tongues. I know you’ll enjoy reading this as much as I have.
On Traveling Libraries and Heroic ‘Book People’: Inspiring children’s books about getting books to people in remote places and difficult circumstances
My sons and I paid our first-ever visit to a bookmobile over the summer. For us it was a novelty. We have shelves of books at home and live just 3 blocks from our local branch library, but the brightly colored bus had pulled up right near the playground we were visiting in another San Francisco neighborhood (whose branch library was under renovation), and it was simply too irresistible. Inside, this library on wheels was cozy, comfortable, and loaded with more books than I would have thought possible. I urged my boys to practice restraint and choose only one book each rather than compete to reach the limit of how many books one can take out of the San Francisco Public Library system (the answer is 50; we’ve done it at least once).
The bookmobiles provide a great service even in our densely populated city where branch libraries abound. There are other mobile libraries, however, that take books to children who may live miles from even the nearest modern road; to children who live on remote islands, in the sparsely populated and frigid north, in temporary settlements in vast deserts, and in refugee camps. The heroic individuals who manage these libraries on boats, burros, vans, and camels provide children and the others they serve with a window on the world and a path into their own imaginations that would otherwise be impossible.
Shortly after my own bookmobile experience, Jeanette Winter‘s Biblioburro (Beach Lane Books, 2010), a tribute to Colombian schoolteacher Luis Soriano, who delivers books to remote hillside villages across rural Colombia, arrived in my mailbox to be reviewed for Paper Tigers. I loved this book, as I do most of Winter’s work, for its bright pictures and simple, straightforward storytelling. Another picture book, Waiting for the Bibiloburro by Monica Brown (Tricycle Press, 2011), 
tells the story of Soriano’s famous project from the perspective of one of the children it
Our current focus on Mongolia would be incomplete without a full mention of poet, writer and librarian extraordinaire, Dashdondog Jamba, who set up Mongolia’s Mobile Children’s Library more than twenty years ago in order to bring books to children even in the remotest parts of the country. We are delighted to be able to bring you a reprint of an article from IBBY’s Bookbird: A Journal of International Children’s Literature written by Dashdondog, “With the Mobile Library Through the Seasons“. Do head over to the main PaperTigers website and read it for some fascinating insight into the Mobile Library service, through this detailed description of one of its journeys. Originally the library was transported by oxcart or camel; now there is a van which clocks up thousands of kilometers every year. The library won the 2006 IBBY-Asahi Reading Promotion Award and features in Margriet Ruurs‘ book My Librarian is a Camel: How Books are Brought to Children Around the World.
As well as ensuring that Mongolian children have access to books from all over the world, Dashdondog Jamba (sometimes also written as Jambyn) is himself the author of more than seventy children’s books. Not many are available in English but you can get a tantalising glimpse of some of them here, at the ICDL. A collection of his retellings of Mongolian Folktales was published recently and is currently our Book of the Month. Dashdondog was instrumental in setting up the Mongolian sections of both SCBWI and IBBY.
You can read an article by Dashdondog, “Children’s Literature in Mongolia Needs Renovation” written for ACCU in 2001, and his speech to IBBY’s 30th Congress in Macau in 2006. Indian author Ramendra Kumar recounts his meeting with Dashdondog here, including an unexpected prelude – and some great photos.
Last Friday, my daughter Emma, our neighbours Thea and Will, and I headed off to North Vancouver to attend the Fall Book Harvest Festival. What a fabulous afternoon we had!
For me, the biggest thrill was finally meeting author Margriet Ruurs in person. Here she is reading her newest book My School in the Rain Forest to the kids. 
They loved the photos in this book and it was a real eye-opener for them to see some of the schools that kids attend. Thea was most interested in the Egypt page (”Wow - they can see the pyramids from their school!”) and Emma wished she could move to Scotland so she could attend school in a castle! Besides showing readers how schools differ throughout the world, Margriet has another goal for this book: to generate student interest in service learning and to encourage students to adopt a library or school in need of books or teaching resources. Click here to read Margriet’s ideas on this.
The photo to the right shows a book that is truly hot off the press! Author Rebecca Kool had only received this copy of Fly Catcher Boy from the printer a few hours earlier and the kids were quite impressed when she showed them that this was copy #1.
Written in English and using Japanese words and expressions throughout the text, Fly Catcher Boy tells the story of Kenji, who is alone during a thunderstorm one night when he is startled by a noise outside and finds a wet and miserable cat on his doorstep. He brings the cat inside and after introductions to his grandmother the next morning, Kenji and his new friend set off on adventures in their small Japanese town. The book also contains a glossary for phonetic pronunciation and the kanji letter for each Japanese word.
Here’s David J. Smith with his book If the World Were a Village. This book is a classic in our house so Emma and I were especially pleased to get a chance to talk to David and to see his newest book, If America Were a Village. This book uses the same concept as If the World Were a Village and shrinks America down to a village of 100 people, thereby helping children to reach a clearer understanding of the ethnic origins, religions, family profiles, occupations, wealth, belongings and more that make up the Unites States. David also shared with us that next year he will be releasing a book based on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.
At the start of the festival, every child was given a bag to collect book marks, stickers, autographs, pencils etc. from the authors and illustrators. By the time we were ready to leave, the bags were overflowing with treasures! We stopped for a piece of cake and then we visited the Kidsbook sales booth where Emma, Thea and Will each chose a book to purchase. Emma’s first choice was My School in the Rain Forest but I already had a copy on order: so she and Thea each went with Fred and Pete at the Beach by Cynthia Nugent, while Will chose Alfalfabet A to Z - The Wonderful Words from Agriculture written by Carol Watterson and illustrated by Michela Sorrentino.
Our congratulations go out to the Children’s Writers and Illustrators of British Columbia (CWILL BC) and to the North Vancouver City Library for putting on such a great event. To all the writers and illustrators who spent time talking with us, sharing their books, signing autographs and giving the kids special treasures, we say THANK YOU.
To see more photos from the event check out CWILL BC’s blog.
Perhaps it’s because she shares her name with the title character that my daughter just loves the “Emma” picture books by award-winning author Margriet Ruurs. Emma, the book version that is, is a hen with personality, persistence and pluck. Her barnyard adventures are hysterical to both young and old readers and as one reviewer says “Emma is a hapless heroine who always seems to triumph in the end – a true role model for the underdog.”
I love the Emma books too: however, my favorite book by Margriet is My Librarian is a Camel. Inspired by a
newspaper article, this book describes unusual mobile libraries found in thirteen countries, from Azerbaijan to Zimbabwe. Besides bookmobiles, this book shows librarians using animals (camels, horses, donkeys, elephants), bicycles, and even a wheelbarrow, to bring books to children in hard-to-reach areas. Complete with world map and text boxes with country information, this book received the International Reading Association’s Notable Book for Global Awareness recognition and has led to schools adopting mobile libraries projects around the world.
Following a similar photo-essay format, Margriet’s newest book My School in the Rain Forest: How Children Attend School Around the World is now available! Several years in the making, this book shares stories and information about many countries around the world and how children attend school. Readers get to know students — from the arid plains of southern Afghanistan to the rain forests of Guatemala — who are pursuing their dreams of a brighter future. At a school that sits on the edge of the Sahara, students are learning to speak English from a teacher who stands in front of a Webcam in North America. In another part of the world, kids aren’t waiting to ride the bus to school — they are waiting to hop in a boat that will take them to a school that floats on a river. And some kids don’t mind heights, especially those who attend a school on the slope of a mountain in the Himalayas, in one of the most remote corners of the earth.
Margriet often does school visits and will be doing slideshow presentations about her travels and the making of this book. Keep an eye on her blog and hopefully she will share some of the details with us.
