 Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to this event, right, sponsored by SAWAS and the Sheikh Zaid Book Award. The Sheikh Zaid Book Award is one of the words leading prizes dedicated to Arabic literature and culture. Since 2016, the award has brought recognition, reward and readership to outstanding work by authors, translators, publishers and organizations around the world. In 2018, the award also launched a translation grant to help produce more quality Arabic books in translation outside the Arab world. The winning and shortlisted titles for the literature and children's literature categories are eligible for translation funding. Publishers from all over the world can apply to receive funding for the translation of one of these titles into any language. 16 books have been translated into multiple languages since the launch of the grant, including English, German, French, Italian, Greek, Georgian and Ukrainian. In 2021, the award saw a growing interest in translation requests from Arabic into global languages, reiterating the importance of translation as an essential tool to build bridges between different nations and to represent cultures, literature and heritage in different languages. SAWAS is of course famous for its global reach and its commitment to the global south. SAWAS is a word leading center for the study of the Arab world with a high profile in cultural, literary and translation studies. The series of four events in April, May and June coincide with the award announcements in May. In these events will bring together creative writers, translators and researchers to talk about the role and place of Arabic culture and literature in today's ever increasing global connectedness. These events are advertised already, but you can look for them, look them up on the SAWAS website keyword, Sherzai Book Award. In today's event, which is the third of the series, we focus on children's literature as word literature. We all read children's literature as children, young adults or grown-ups. We also read it to children. It is an integral part of our life, of how we relate to children and of the ways in which we instill in our children values we believe in, pass on to them, memories we cherish, share with them the stories we love and bring them up in our languages and word views through fun and game. However, I know two absences. One, the absence of Arabic children's literatures in word children's literature and two, the absence of the absence of children's literature in word literature or inconsiderations of word literature. We look at these two absences closely today. Where is Arabic children's literature? Who are the authors and what do they write about? What can explain the absence of Arabic children's literature in the world market and critical space? We have with us three distinguished panelists. Let me introduce them very briefly and let them speak for themselves. Raja Malah is an architect from Morocco. She holds a master's degree in urban planning from the Nantes Paris University of France. In addition to her work as an architect in Dubai, she is interested in writing for children and young people her book. Ma'idi Ma'an Noor, my date with the light has been shortlisted for the Sheikh Zaid Book Award in 2022 in the children's literature's category, I mean, this year. Her most important publications are My Gift for Young for Your Birthday 2018, The Wings of My Plain, 2019, Emerald Garden 2020, let me explain the meaning of immortality 2021. She has also literally translated works most notably ontology of contemporary Emirati poetry, 2007. Where were they writing translation? Where were they writing translation from French into Arabic? This is the year, is it? And so that's Raja Malah. And then we have with us also Pam Dix. Pam worked in London in the school library sector and as a university lecturer in children's literature. She has been the chair of Ibi UK since 2014 and is involved in many international projects to support this work. She's also the chair of the Akili Trust, a small charity that has been working in Kenya since 2008. And is a trustee for Book 8 International. She was the advisor editor of children's literature in a multiliterate world, published by UCL Institute of Education Press 2018. And we also have with us Charlotte Eyre. Charlotte Eyre is a freelance journalist and former children's editor as a bookseller where she is still a previewer. At the bookseller, she wrote news and feature stories about the children's publishing industry program, the annual children's conference and launched the YA Book Prize in 2014. She is a regular guest on radio programs such as Open Book on BBC Radio 4. Before we sort of like, before I go ahead and explain today's format, let me do some housekeeping. If you would like to hear this event in Arabic, please go to the bottom of your screen, click on an icon that looks like Earth, a globe under which is written interpretation and you can access this event in Arabic interpretation. If you would like to hear this event in Arabic, please go to the bottom of your screen, click on an icon that looks like Earth, a globe under which is written interpretation and you can access this event in Arabic interpretation. Number one, number two, right, please sort of like use the question and answer function to pose your questions to us and to the audience. And three, this event will be recorded. And when it is ready, when the recording is ready, it will be posted on the Sawas YouTube channel and also the Sherzai Book Award YouTube channel. Right now, we'll begin right now. So today's format. First, we have an hour that can go beyond a little bit if there is interest into today's event, we will follow this format featured author, right, so we will talk to our author first, and then followed by panel discussion in the form of question and answers. We will use the questions and ask the panelists to join me. Right. Well, we'll start with Raja. Raja. Right. When did you start writing for children. First of all, I would like to thank you professor when or your introduction, and thank you for your invitation. I would like also to express my thanks to all the audience. I'm very happy to be with you in this event to talk about the children literature in the word and especially in Arabic word. We'll talk about it through my humble experience in this field. As you know, and as you can see, I did not follow the academic path to be writer for kids. Many of my friends and relatives are quite surprised to see me jumping from designing houses and cities to writing for kids. I, and I can understand the confusion, but I would like to say that many writers came from other fields and had parallel jobs. So, why I landed in children's books fields and how well the story is simple and unexpected, even for me. I started writing for my kids 20 years ago, when I became mum for the first time. Being mother changed it completely my conception of life and showed me with many feelings, not only happiness and joy but also fear. I realized suddenly that I'm here for a quite big and serious mission, and I understood and that I'm responsible for other little human being. I'm responsible for their future, their souvenirs they will carry on for the rest of their lives. I decided to enjoy the trip with them and for them. So I realized how fast time is passing. So I decided to do my best to catch this moment by writing. I use it to keep a notebook and pencil in my handbag with diapers and bottle feed. And when I was feeling gratitude to the moment I sit in to write some lines about these moments. I could be in a walk in the park or it could be a simple even in at home. I wrote many texts in this their first for their first step for their first feet for their first day at school. So I had multiple notebooks. I lost many also. And I have realized that only books stay and could remain with me. In the 10th birthday of my eldest kid, Kenan, I decided to gather all these notebooks and not just and this writing he inspired in a book. So came my first book for him, which I called my birthday for you, my gift for you birthday. I mean, I decided to publish it years after to make it public. So the first book wasn't for my eldest kid. My writing followed my kids growth and evolution. And because we are living abroad, far from my home country in Morocco, I felt I have to introduce my family, my childhood and memories to them. They have many questions about my father, their grandpa, they never met. So I wrote for them the wings of my kite. This is a story telling my story where I was writing letters to my dad who passed away in very young age. So Emerald Garden was a day from my childhood with my grandma, which I wrote specially to my kids so they can know how great, great my grandma was and how great is to have a grandma in his life. My story was somehow a time travel for them and for me. They could meet my childhood through this book. This is my story with how I landed in writing. You're muted. Muted myself. Yes. Yeah, sorry. This is very intriguing because what you're telling me is that your writing was also a companion for your children as they were growing up. So let me come to you and ask you two more things. One is language, your bilingual and I assume your children are also bilingual. So in which language do you write for them? And when do you write in French or in Arabic and if you write in two languages, when do you choose to write in which language? So this is question number one. And question number two. It's sort of topics, right, themes, you know, and I hear a lot about memories, your own memories of your own childhood with your own parents in Morocco. And it seems to me that what you're trying to sort of like give your children is something that they don't have access to, right, Morocco, growing up in Morocco, memories of that, but your memories rather than memories. So can you talk about these two, right, sort of like and tell us more about your work. First of all, we talked about the language, why I choose which language I choose in the beginning and which language I'm using now. When I started writing for my kids, I was automatically writing in French. I don't know why. Maybe because at that time I was living in Paris, or maybe because I like this language specially with all the nuances and poetry in this language, French language, but after living in Dubai for years. And at my big surprise, I started writing in Arabic. Why I really don't know. I cannot say exactly why I choose to switch to Arabic. But I was really happy to reconnect with my mother tongue language. Each time I write in Arabic, I enjoy this rich dimension, which I was hidden, which was hidden inside me. So I can write Arabic, French, and sometimes English. For my kids, yeah, yeah, sometimes I wrote some passage in, sorry, in my, my gift for your birthday, it was also in passages in, it was in three languages. So it's like, it's, it's multilingual, your text is multilingual. Yeah, yeah, the first one. Tell us about sort of like, how do we play with multilingualism and memory? Tell us about memory and multilingualism. As I said, French was, was my first, my, not my first language, because I was writing in French, and I like this, this, this dimension of French dimension, these nuances in words. When I wrote in Arabic, it's like, I don't know, I was reconnecting with my grandma, maybe I was like with my, my family, my grandma was talking Arabic, but my mom was talking, is talking French and Arabic. So, so it's like going to my past, my, my, my ancestor, I think, this language, and I feel Arabic and I feel it now, I feel the word more now than before. For that I started. Yeah. Yeah, so interesting, I mean multilingualism and this is what this is our life, right? This is our environment. Sometimes, sometimes confusing. Yeah. Yeah, but each language has its function. But I want to come, come to a follow up question, that writing for your children get you to pick up an interest in children's literature in general, and Arabic children's literature in particular. I mean, did you pick that up, right? And I sort of, I can sort of frame this when I was growing up in Libya, right? So I heard children's songs, right? And you, you see, Tandoqat Dunya, right, like Judy and Punch stuff on TV, but all the children's books were translated, right? And I didn't know about Arabic children's literature until I was a grown up and my friend Samah Idris Allah Yarham wrote Samah Idris Allah. Yeah, so his journey in writing for children is like yours. He wanted to preserve, he wanted his books to be companions for his children as they grew up and his books sort of grew up with them. And the other thing he wanted to do was to use these books to get them to be interested in the Arabic language. And the second one is remembrance of the Lebanese civil war, right? So, and these are the very few instances of my knowledge of Arabic children's literature. So let me, did you pick up an interest in Arabic children's literature? I will confess this. In the beginning, I didn't know that there is a literature dedicated to children. I thought the books for children is what we wrote at school only. So when I, 20 years before when I was interested by this field, I started to get to be curious to see the new publication in Arabic and other language and to see the translation, just to know how big is this field, how writers are dealing with these subjects. And I was quite impressed that this field is progressing pretty fast. So from that, you can see that my interest grow progressively with my writing. So we're going to hold on to this question because I want to come to Pam and Charlotte in a bit to ask about the presence of Arabic children's literature in the word market outside of the Arabic speaking world. But before we get there, I believe you have an excerpt that you want to share with us. Would you read from your short listed book? Yeah, I choose short passages, so I will not be very long and we'll let time for others. And I pick page 24. As you say, I will just brief you this is my idea. No, it's my date with with with light is telling a story about a girl and very small town in Morocco. This girl has a disease. She's losing her sight eyesight, progressively, and she's living a very hard, hard life with her parents and her family there in Morocco. And instead of losing hope, instead of just let it be and losing his sight, her sight eyes, she decided to be to be a doctor. Which is not believable when when we are going to be blind. So this is a very long journey, a full of surprises and adventures. And in the end, it shows us that dreams and hope are strongest than everything in life. So my position is like that. She's talking about her childhood. She's talking about her childhood. Thank you. The other, if you don't mind, it's very small. The last one is very short also. When she decided to return back to her home country as a doctor. I want to return back to my hometown in the same country as my childhood. To my homeland, my childhood, my mountains and my desert. For our inner, what still is the breath of hope and dreams. Remember and love for you. Thank you so much. So I'm going to return to sort of Pam and Charlotte Pam first and set the scene up for us in the UK and in English. I mean, you've heard from Russia, the sort of what it is like, right in Arabic, a little bit. So what about here. I mean, it's different, I assume. Yeah, Pam, shall we start with you. Thank you so much and thanks for inviting me to be here. I think it's a very different scene and one that we've been trying within my world of maybe in the UK to address as much as we can. So I think the majority of books that are available in the UK in Arabic would be translations from English to Arabic. There would be books that are part of series that are translated into many languages to try and cater for the needs of different language speakers in the UK. We've been aware of this situation for some time, and we have done a few projects which you'll pick up when you see the slides that I've done. One of the most interesting ones was to work with our colleagues in France where they had done a very good list of 100 children's books in Arabic. And we thought that if people in the UK could know about that it would help them select books for the Arabic speakers in their communities. So we worked collaboratively with France and Ireland to get that list translated so that the librarians and bookshops could see what books were available and that they could possibly buy because the difficulty is if you don't speak a language is selecting books in that language. So I think I have this idea for running a course on how to select a language that you don't speak because I think there are some good activities that we could do there. And again, talking to my French colleagues, they've just done that for school librarians and it was a very successful training. We've been trying to promote that, promote the award, the various awards. And I'm very aware that the work of Sheikh Badour, who is from Kalimat Foundation has also helped to bring attention to the Arabic world and books that are produced in the Arabic world. And I think as she's president of the International Publishers Association this year, we'll probably hear a lot more from her about about it. That's a very brief overview, but I think like many languages spoken in the UK, the children's book provision is not always there to support the children's reading in that language, unless the parents have access to buying books from outside the UK. Charlotte, what about the English book market? I know when we met earlier, we talked about how dominant children's literature in English is in the world. Can you tell us a little bit about the diversity of this body of literature, right? What is being published, which edge grooves, you know, does the material cover purposes of children's literature? And please, Pam, come back, right, if you want to address these questions as well, right? Purposes of children's literature, how big is the market really? Just tell us more about it. Charlotte? Yes, of course. Thank you very much for having me. I'm delighted to be here. The market for children's books in the UK is a very mature one. This country has been producing children's literature, you know, for centuries now in a very successful fashion. The size of the market is massive. So people often say that children's books take up about a quarter to a third of all the books produced in the country. I asked my colleague to crunch the latest figures through Nielsen Bookscan, which looks at the market as a whole. And he said that last year, children's book sales hit £372 million through Bookscan, but that's missing 10 weeks of lockdown. So if we had the full year statistics, they probably would have been on record year. As it stands, the previous record year was 2019, where sales were £387.6 million. So far in 2022, the children's market is running 3% ahead of that record year. So he is pretty confident that their children's book market will crack the £400 million mark for the first time ever by the end of 2022. So that is a very, very, very big market and publishers in this country produce books for all age groups. And when they say children's publishing, they mean everything from baby books. So for stiff cardboard books for the tiny children, babies all the way up to teen and YA and those can be crossover books. So things like the Hunger Games, which are also made by adults, are quite often usually classed as YA and made by children's publishers. It's a huge industry. So when people say, you know, there's lots of reasons why people make children's books, but people make children's book primarily because it's an industry is a big reason they want to make money. But also because they just love literature, they're passionate about getting children reading, they're passionate about stories. They love opening children's minds to different worlds, different stories, different people, new opportunities. And so in terms, even though it is a business, I think people love what they do and they're very passionate about children's literature as a genre. Can I turn to you then, Pam, because I know you're sort of like you're involved in a charity that is trying to make sure children have access to children's literature. So can I, can I sit and pick your brains, right, about why is this important, right, we have a huge group, right, and they're very diverse from very young children to young, young, less young children, young adults, and almost adults, something like this, right. And it's a huge market, yes, but also children love to read. And we love to read to them, right, because you could, and why is this then important, right, for us as adults, and you think for the children, I know you teach children's literature as well. Before I just like to add that within the amazing figures, Charlotte, I haven't heard those recently so that's incredible. The children's information book market is also very big so we're not only talking about stories but we're talking about information books for children, and that's been a hugely popular genre recently. And it's very interesting that a lot of contemporary information books for children are written in a narrative style, so they're picking up on that kind of idea of longer text and engagement with story rather than just sharing a fact. Anyway, to go back to your question. The organization that I represent, Ibi, which is the International Board of Books for Young People, was set up after World War Two by an inspirational woman called Yella Lepman. And its aim was to encourage that notion of international understanding through children's books, and that need has never gone away in the years since World War Two and it's become even greater now, I think. So what the Ibi world does is join up the whole children's book producing world which could be the consumers, the parents and children, but also teachers, academics, writers, illustrators and so forth into a kind of global network where we can share ideas and thinking. And the core of it is, is, I mean, I think it's simplified in a, in a theoretical approach that was laid out by Rudine Sims Bishop the American academic, which is called the windows mirrors and sliding glass doors theory. And it's basically a summary of the idea that if you see yourself in a children's book, you recognize something. If you look through the mirror, you can see the world of another. And with the sliding glass door, you can open and go into another world. And there have been and there still are huge numbers of children who don't get to the starting block because they never see themselves reflected in a children's book, because there are no books that are about them. And whilst that doesn't stop them from reading, I think the engagement with reading changes when you've seen yourself in a book or you've seen something about your life or your concerns or your world in a book which is what Roger was talking about with her writing I think really. And that also goes to language if you've never seen your language written in a book, then you don't think your language can be a book language. And I love Roger's example of using three languages in a text, because that's what I hope we'll see a lot more of because many of our children are growing up in a very multiliterate, multiliterate environment with grandparents speaking one language, and one another language, the community that speaks another language. So, so seeing that development of not necessarily whole text but just words being incorporated is a great starting point, I think. So, so it's diversity on that bigger scale that I want to see. And, and what we work towards. And then the other point of it is, is the fact that, despite in the UK being a very rich world, or throughout the world there are many children who live in situations where they don't have access to books. They don't have access to libraries they don't have access to school libraries they don't have the money for books. So another arm of the world is to run projects in communities that are very challenged. And they may be communities in refugee camps. They may be communities in Afghanistan where children are being denied access to school. They may be in troubled areas. Or they may be situations where because of natural disasters books have been lost. So there's a whole outreach program of getting books to children who are deprived of books. And, and finally to answer your question of why I think at the very heart of it, everyone who's involved in children's books has this core belief that if they can find the right book for the right child they can make a reader. And certainly for me as a librarian as a teacher, that's always been the challenge and the kind of buzz that you get when someone says to you, This is my country. This is me. This is something I can use in my classroom. I think I've changed the life of someone. So, I mean that's quite ambitious, but I do feel that that's what drives us. Yeah, yeah, or Charlotte would you like to come in or shall I push for that please go ahead. I find it's very interesting what I heard now. Yeah. I think all of us all of us here today will probably share the kind of aspirations that Pam has just sort of articulated on our behalf. And one of the things is really also part of this dream of diversity, right, that diversity we live in a diverse community, and to have that diversity reflected in our writing is very important. And I want to come back right to this point about the absence of Arabic children's literature right in two senses. There's one son is Arabic children's literature is still maturing is not as old as like English children's literature, but the other problem is really right, sort of the market and the market for the translation of children's literature. I want to talk a little bit about this and is there an explanation for that why I mean I sort of is it because like I was thinking about the other a Harry Potter has been translated in almost everywhere language and it's made into films. Is it because of this dominance right of the English children's literature market that is further, but trust by Hollywood, for example, shall we go around the room and say, shall we start with you Charlotte. I think that the Hollywood media culture is an interesting thing to talk about and I think especially with teen and YA. We perhaps see that there is a funnel especially American actually not so much British but especially American literature, there seems to be a bit more of a funnel to Hollywood and to those producers and that happens. And I think what's quite interesting to notice or to note as well is, so for example, this autumn there's a fantastic teenage book coming out called whether lemon trees grow about the Syrian war and it's absolutely wonderful. And the author who wrote it is Syrian. But she grew up partly in Dubai and also a little bit in Canada she lives in Switzerland and she wrote this book in English. And it's very, very difficult for anybody to get a book deal I completely understand that but I think what is perhaps even harder is to get people who are writing about their background or their countries in their own language and perhaps because of this dominance of English. You know that's, that's, I think, you know, I'm sure Pam knows a lot about this but it would be interesting to look more in to say well where are the voices writing in their own language and what can publishers do, or even Netflix producers and Hollywood producers to bring those voices to the for and that's the challenge isn't it. Yes, I totally agree it's a real challenge and and I think there are whole parts of the world where writers were not hearing their voices at all. So we're dependent on a kind of network of communications between publishers, but but to just a backtrack one step. I think that are 10 years ago only one center for the children's books published in the UK translation. And when you think of, you know, Tintin and Heidi and all the old classics. That means very few of those books were new books. So it's very good now to have some specific publishers who are publishing books that are in translation, and I would single out pushkin and enchanted lion is to publishers who've done some really sort of fantastic work in finding and bringing books to our attention. But I think it, we are really dependent on the networks within countries to find those voices and to try and put them forward. And the best stage is Bologna and the children's book there at Bologna because that's where books are bought and sold. And I mean, maybe, I mean, I'm sure there have been Arabic focuses at Bologna but maybe for example, it could be the subject of another Bologna book fair with a big focus on promoting some key Arabic books for example. I mean, I had a look this year, and there wasn't a great deal about Arabic children's literature in Bologna, in this first fair that we've had since the pandemic, and quite a lot of empty stands with very little going on there. So, there were some good stands don't get me wrong, Alamak being an exemplar, but I think there's more work that could be done promoting local authors on the international stage. Yeah, I agree totally with what these ladies said. And I can say that since its origin cinemas has taken its source from literature, and some adaptation has become masterpieces, other has been forgotten. And this is one of the main goals for children literature. And we know the success of books and movies such as little Nikola, Nikola Lupiti and the saga of Harry Potter. The attraction of cinema to and literature certainly certainly works on dreams and emotions and feelings. The adaptation of literature work to the big screen will encourage I think the reader to dip in the reading. And to discover by word, the images discovered on the big screen. And I think this is a good way to promote a book. And I think and encourage the young people to read. And I hope Arabic word when we do the same, because he has the potential to do it. The sort of, you know what is absent in the world is really a cinema like Hollywood cinema. Exactly. So we have very small art house cinemas, television again, you know, sort of national. And it's, it's kind of really, I'm not able to imagine that there is an Hollywood that would sort of adapt children Arabic children's literature into blockbusters for example right. We have art house productions, but but let's move that aside and overlap it. Pam, please come in. Yes, I just wanted to add one thing which I would say that more important in the UK market has been on children's television. And actually we see many fewer adaptations of children's books than that we were in the heyday, but that was a very important vehicle when when Channel four and the BBC Children's programs were mainstream rather than I mean it's a whole other discussion about what's happening with children's television which I won't go down. But you know I for many years was a BAFTA judge on children's adaptation films. I just don't see that quality of production anymore. So I just wanted to make that point. Yeah. So there's something happening into sort of the in the industry and there's something happening in the market. So sort of like, can we overlap this this issue with another issues which is the size of the critical space right for introducing assessing evaluating promoting children's literature, and in particular children's literature in translation. Can I come to you Charlotte to address this issue. So what I've noticed and that everyone else has noticed is a real lack of space in newspapers and magazines to talk about children's books. So what we tend to have now is that a situation where children's book critics or children's book reviewers are only given a page or perhaps even two pages. And when you think about how many children's books are published, I was sent 400 to look at for the month of August and that are coming out next August. Now that's a quiet month in publishing 400 books just from, you know, UK publishers. So what reviewers and critics have to do is pick their favourites and then so you get a top picks, you know the top picks from the observer or the top picks from the sun. But that doesn't mean that they are being looked at critically. And the one thing that newspapers always did is that they put reviews in front of people who weren't necessarily looking for children's book reviews. Now there are lots of fantastic websites or social media pages and people will say, oh well we can take this online instead. But what happens there is that they tend to be read by the people who are looking for information about children's books. Perhaps they love David Walliams, so they will go and Google David Walliams and find a children's book blog about it. But what they're not seeing then is reviews about other children's books and also the readers of newspapers who are looking, reading their paper thinking, well that's an interesting article about the war in Ukraine. I like this article about growing flowers in my garden. Oh look and actually I might enjoy a bit of critical writing about children's books and that's just not happening at the moment which is a bit of a shame. Yeah, I agree and sort of I feel that you know part of this critical space is also to be able to bring out you know the language right in children's writing in writing for children, not children's writing for children, writing in children's book, the aesthetics, the fun, right, but also the imagination that goes into children's literature, right. So can you talk about this a little bit sort of Pam and Raja and Charlotte as well if you like, right. And the role, the importance of the role in children's literature of children's literature in children's life in children's upbringing. Yeah, sort of shall I come to you Pam first and then Charlotte and then Raja. I was just following on a little bit from what Charlotte said. I do think that one of the times when you get more coverage in the press is when there are awards, and if the agencies managing awards can can get good press coverage. So you know we're about to have the Carnegie Greenaway Awards in the UK that will always get this coverage. Everything controversial will get even more press coverage. So, so that you then get into some kind of sometimes quite unpleasant diatribe about what is children's literature where is it going. Is this subject matter suitable for children should this book have been nominated for an award. So that's the only time that you get real critical space. But to go back to your other question about language and children. I mean, I think that the richness that you can get from reading a wide variety of books is really very important to a child's development. And if, if the only books that are being reviewed are not really reflecting the depth and complexity of the market, then children are often reading at a more superficial level than they could do. They're dependent on librarians and teachers to help them find books that are of greater complexity or more challenging to them, because we know that children read up and down they read around they read widely. If they've got an interest in the subject they're going to read a really complicated text on it, but equally they like to go back to the picture books that they loved when they were little. And so, so you need to be able to give them access to that diversity to help their language development. Yes, what about what about your experience of, you know, your books being reviewed or looked at or promoted. Yeah, do you have any sort of like about this about the presence of your books, your, you know, in this critical space and sort of like your response to do that your feelings about that. You're muted. I was, as I said, sorry, I, as I said I was expected to, to be in the light by my writings I just, I just wanted to enter this trip just to talk to my kids and, and when I found that my books are here. And we're now here to talk about somehow about my experience. It's really strange to me it's confusing for me, because it wasn't meant to be like that. It was just a whisper from me to my kids. And this whisper took these dimensions. And when I, but me personally I try to write in for kids and found myself, myself, myself able to write for teenagers, especially. I am one of these people who think that we can discuss many topics with children. And I have a lot of, I choose to talk sometimes about complicated topics like illness like griefs like abuses. And somehow I took this responsibility, which is not very easy. I have to choose the words and I have to choose to choose the right, the right words to approach this very big subjects. And the, yeah, when, when we, we write for kids we have to know which range we're focusing to, because writing for kids is a big and quite huge responsibility and we have very extremely wide, wide field. From five years or from even before to 12, 15 years. And we can talk about this after and how we can approach, if you want, this, this range of ages. I don't know if I answered to your question. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's an important question. And I think we're trying to grapple this question but we're not quite getting there yet. But time is time is flying. Right. It's almost three o'clock already. So what we could do is really pause for Pam, Pam, you want to do your PPT right. And then we can put questions. Yeah. Yes, and just flag up one other thing, which is just illustration, which is another language for children, which is very important. I think you can just pass this, the slides over the screen, because they're, they are just say what each one refers to because people can look them up. So if you go to the next slide. Okay. Yeah, I've put the three Ibi resource list which are done every two years. The first one is wordless books, which came out of a project working with refugees in Lampedusa. And it's a list of wordless books that are published around the world. It's now in its fifth iteration. And it's the most wonderful resource collection, which you can see if you go to Rome. You can see the online at the Ibi website, the main website. The second is the Honour List, which is done nominations by the 80 member countries of Ibi and their books in translation picture books and illustrated books. And the third one is the books for and about children with disability. And again, that's a collection of books nominated from around the world. So if you did the selection for the Ibi list, we were submitted, 90 books were submitted from UK publishers, which is the biggest number we've ever had. The next to draw people's attention if they've never been to the International Children Library in Munich, which was also set up after World War Two and is a wonderful place to visit if anyone's in Munich, but they produce an annual book called The White Ravens, which is their list of the best books they've seen from around the world. And then the last is just the link to the 100 books in Arabic that I mentioned, which we did with Ibi from, which is online at the Ibi website. This one, right? It's the bottom. So I have this first, second. Yes, I think this is, this isn't, yeah, there was a later version of this presentation with another slide, don't worry. And then that one is just to remember the Hans Christian Andersen Award winners, which is nominated every two years. And they are what, after a very careful selection process by academics and panelists are considered to be the best writer and illustrator from around the world. And that is a challenge, I think, to publishers to make them available in many languages. So I've just given you the 2022 winners there. Great. Thank you. Stop sharing. Okay. There's something wrong with my computer. It doesn't work properly. Right. Sorry about that. Anything else before we sort of open up to questions from the audience? Anybody? I just wanted to say really quickly that one thing that is so wonderful about children's books is that they remind us how much we have in common, as well as being able to reach diverse people of all kinds. And, you know, I think it was, Raja was talking about writing about her grandmother, but also the bad experiences in life like illness and grief, and a child, children all over the world have those experiences. So a child in Australia, or Zambia, or Switzerland, or wherever, you know, can read that book and have an, and the experiences that Raja's characters are going to resonate with them. I think that's a truly wonderful thing. I think I'll take away from this session the notion that Raja gave of whispering to your children. Maybe we can get more whispers around the world who can start writing books for their children. I think it's a lovely concept. Thank you. Thank you. Well, what to say. I'm very delighted. Yeah, happy to be with you. And to talk about myself. It's not a habit for me. I never talk about myself. I like to others talk, my children's or my other kids talk about me one day, when they will read a book, and when they will close the book, and something reached them from my life. And if they will read it, or one sentence, touch their soul. I would be very grateful. Okay, great. Thank you. I have questions from the audience. And the first one is to Raja. Did you translate your books by yourself. The first one. Yeah, sorry. Okay, yeah, my problem that I have low, low battery. Okay, yeah. Yeah, let me finish. Yeah, let me finish the question. Can you please talk to us about your experience in translating your own books. Any difficulties. Yeah, because when I'm I translate my translate my books. I, I, I'm really did I'm writing again. So it's like I'm writing twice. I'm not translating I'm rewriting in other language. This is the problem I face. So if I are writing Arabic and I want to translate and French suppose I'm writing in Arabic and another in French. It's not similar words it's not the same path, but it's the same feeling. I prefer that someone else objectively will translate it. It's better than me because me I will involve myself in the translations. If you got me. I'm rewriting in other languages. I hate translating myself. Yeah, I was asked to do it. I was like, exactly. I don't know if they can catch my, my sense of what I'm seeing. So there's another question for you. Right. What do you feel Arab writers need to work on more so that their books become more appealing to kid readers ideas, style diversity in topics others. What do you think. And I think this is a question for all of us. Right. Yeah, so we'll start with Russia and we come to power and then on to Charlotte. I used to say that when we write for kids we have to be we have to write for the kids inside us. We have to find the kids inside us and to be just as we are to say what we were feeling then to say the truth with the simple words. This is what I can advise somebody to others. The writer he his job is to write. But the reader has a job to read. So if writers just right, they should have an audience. Parents should help and encourage their kids to write. If me I'm writing for someone. And, and this someone is not coming to to find my words. It's, it's like, what to say, it's hopeless. So writers and readers should meet somewhere. And this somewhere should be a truth story, a true story and a true feeling inside. That's, that's I can say about, about what I advise writer to do. And also, I think that cinema was the production film poster should, should have an interest to the kids books. And one of my, what I, one of my dreams is to do a small short films or cartoons from my books. This would be a good, a good thing to do for me and for for kids. This is the experience I wanted to, to Arabic words. I don't know if they will. There is someone to to be interested in that. But this is my hope. At least for my little, my little books. I hope you'll be heard. I think the comment that I would like to make just from the Arabic books that I've looked at is the need for illustrators to be more confident about their own style. Because, I mean, this is a very sweeping generalization and I know that I could be very challenged for it. But I see many books that are a halfway house between cultures and often derivative of European illustration style, maybe because they've been taught or been on courses with European illustrators. And I think they need confidence to develop their own style, which makes their own cultural reference, and to tell their own traditional stories, as well as absorb European literature. So I'd like to see more, more, more of that happening. That's very broad overview, I know. But I mean, obviously I don't read Arabic, so I can't comment on the content of many stories. But I've been very disappointed at the number that are just end up being not one thing or the other I think in terms of illustration. And I think illustration is the one of the most powerful ways of getting children to engage with story. Before I turn to Charlotte, there is a request for you. Could you please share the link of the Ibi list of the words illustrators. Is it on the PPT? Yes. The illustrator, the illustrators list or the illustrators list. There isn't an Ibi illustrators list, but illustration is a category every two years in the Honour Books list. I hope that's what the person was referring to. That's on the Ibi.org, not Ibi.org.uk, but Ibi.org, which is the international site. So Charlotte, shall we come to you? I think I can't speak specifically for books written in Arabic for children, but I think in general, I agree with Raja that emotional truth and emotional honesty is very important as is seeing the world through a child's perspective. And would they experience having to go to a food bank the same way that an adult would? Would they experience their parents losing a job in the same way that their parents would? What would be their feelings about that? Good experiences and bad, I think is really important. And also, I think there's a balance between being authentic to yourself, which is incredibly important, but also being aware of what the market is and what is selling and what is being published. Because ultimately, you do have to get somebody to agree to publish your book, and they have to like what they see. And they buy books not just because they like them, they think they can sell them. They think this book has a place and a purpose in the market. They think it will reach that reader that they want to reach that they haven't reached already. So just reading widely of the books that you like and you admire. So if you like a certain children's author, really read it quite critically, look at the illustrations, look at the text and work out what you love about it and why you think that works for a child's audience. Great. I think these are all the questions you have. So we can come, we can come to a conclusion on that very nice, beautiful note. So thank you again, my panelists, Pam, Charlotte and Raja for taking part in this event, and I hope you enjoyed it. I definitely did. Thank you again. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Pleasure meeting you. Pleasure meeting you. Oh, thank you. Bye guys.