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At a
story-reading session in one of the private English medium city schools in
Chennai, the children of class VI, about 60 of
them, were asked what books they read. There was silence. After some
prodding a voice piped up with the name of a story she had read — from her
English textbook as it turned out. After some more prompting
another child mentioned Tinkle, the comic book series so popular with
children today. Just two responses. These were children from middle and
upper middle-class homes, many with educated parents often with both parents
working. They came from homes with televisions, refrigerators, cars or
two-wheelers, but no children's books. We were shocked. This was our first
interaction as publishers of children's books with a class of children.
They
read of course, their school books most of the time and maybe bits and
pieces from magazines and newspapers and the occasional comic. But they did
not read books outside the classroom. They did not read for pleasure.
The story reading
session that followed the interaction with the children was a great hit —
we had a class full of enthusiastic listeners, except for the teachers who
seemed unhappy at having to sit around with the children when they could
have been doing something else! Enthusiastic children who, given a chance,
would love to read books at one end, indifferent parents and teachers at the
other, and the publishers, creators of children's books, caught in between.
Bridging the gap between these two groups — adults responsible for
selecting and providing books and children, the actual users — is what the
symbiosis between creators of children's books and readers is all
about.
Why do we need to
build this bridge? Simply, to tackle attitudes. The attitude of parents,
teachers, librarians generally is that reading books is first for improving
reading and writing skills and then for improving general knowledge. In a
system where the textbook dominates the curriculum, where a child carries 5
to 6 textbooks to school everyday, the feeling I suppose is that his/her
reading is taken care of.
I have heard parents
say, "My child has so much to read, where is the time to read other
books?" The assumption here is that reading serves the same purpose
whether you are reading textbooks or other books. Worse is the assumption
that reading textbooks has a very definite purpose whereas reading other
books is a waste of time and money. Reading is also seen as something that
the school should take care of. Parents completely absolve themselves of the
responsibility of providing an atmosphere at home that values, encourages
and engenders the reading habit — oh no, all that is for school. And in
school? The atmosphere is even less congenial with teacher after teacher
focussing on textbooks in the classroom and the libraries displaying locked
cupboards of expensive encyclopaedias and sadly, badly, bound books. Totally
uninspiring and doing nothing to invite the child to open the pages.
Coming
back to the question of symbiosis, if there is to be a meaningful, natural
freeway between publishers and young readers, attitudes prevailing in
schools and homes, of parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts, teachers and
librarians, all these have to change. First there has to be a recognition of
the need for children to read books other than textbooks. Books that offer
them a chance to be real readers, not just to say words aloud. Books that
demonstrate to young people the personal pleasure of reading. As long as
schools and homes do not provide books their rightful space, children will
never realise that reading can be a pleasure. Confronted by the dull,
dreary, dread of textbooks, they will give it up at the first opportunity.
And I am convinced that this happens, over and over again.
Having said this, I'd
like to give you an idea of how this symbiosis works at
Tulika. When we set
up Tulika the least encouragement we got was from well-meaning friends in
publishing and distribution. They warned us about the problems of
distribution — discounts, credits, collections, et al. Our response was to
set up Goodbooks, a company to
promote and market children's books. We believed that if we had a committed
team of people (one at first and later two) who worked closely with shops
and schools we could find the space for good children's books. It worked in
a handful of shops and schools who were interested in the first place and
were supportive of our efforts, but it was a struggle with the others. We
had to constantly rethink our strategy for shops — exclusive displays,
attractively painted Goodbooks stands (we found them used as umbrella stands
or simply put away) , display of reviews, book jackets, and even a book
release and author signing. The struggle continues but has got easier as our
list got longer and we had more books to offer.
The problems of
distribution persist but the greater problem was the lack of awareness about
the need for children's books among parents and children. In our
interactions with schools, teachers, librarians and parents we have faced
numerous situations where it was always the adults who posed the problem,
who stood between the book and child. Children were enthusiastic, eager,
anxious to look at, hold and read books. How else do you explain this — it
would be break time but the children would all crowd round our stall at
school fairs when they could have been playing. There were children who sat
at the stall and finished reading a book they couldn't buy. There were
parents dragging away crying children who badly wanted books. We realised
that we had to address this problem first if our books had to reach our
young readers. The problem was how? Our response has been a newsletter: Goodbooks
for children and young people. It is a quarterly publication where we
raise several questions about reading and books and hope to discuss, argue,
exchange ideas and actively involve people in the world of children's books.
Then there was the
problem of reach. We were constrained to working with a few shops in 3-4
cities where we could be sure of payments and reorders. How does a small
organisation like Goodbooks reach cities and towns in other parts of the
country? Our answer has been the Goodbooks
Library, a direct mail service. The newsletter includes a catalogue of
books which is a list of good children's books from different publishers
including Tulika. We charge a small membership fee, Rs 100 for individuals
and Rs 200 for institutions — and we look for support to sustain the
effort. We mailed out 10,000 copies of our June issue, mainly to schools.
The first issue was made possible because we got sponsorship support. We
hope to continue to get support for at least the next 3 issues. The first
few members are, as we hoped, from smaller towns and cities. There is even
one from Tibet! We hope the Goodbooks Library will grow to include members
from every corner of the country and that the newsletter will become a
common space for concerned individuals to share and discuss their thoughts,
ideas, views about books for the young. By providing this vital space for
parents and teachers we hope to take the books we create closer to our
readers.
The Goodbooks Library
also sources books from other publishers in India and other Asian countries.
Our exposure to books from countries other than the US and UK are very
limited. It is important to have a lively exchange of books with other
developing countries if we are to truly democratise our children's reading.
With the entry of giant publishing houses from the west there is the real
danger of having access to only the kinds of books they choose to bring in.
The Goodbooks Library offers not just books in English but also books in
other languages. There is also a need to select those books that children,
especially in the 14+ age group, would enjoy even though they are written
for adults. The process of reading and selecting will continue and we hope
to open up the ever-widening world of children's books.
Through the Goodbooks
Library we offer children a range of books in different languages, for
different age groups, in different genres, from different countries. Through
the Goodbooks newsletter we reach these books to a wider and wider
readership. But what brings us closest to our readers is our reading
promotion activities in schools — workshops based on books,
meet-the-author/illustrator sessions, story-telling sessions, story-reading
sessions. Our most successful programme is the Goodbooks
Reading Corner. Successful because we have set up these reading corners
not just in private English medium schools but also in ten Corporation
schools, ten reading corners in each school.
Briefly, the
Goodbooks Reading Corner is a classroom library which comes in an attractive
bag. The bag holds up to a 100 books, it can be hung on the wall and can be
carried from class to class. This way the books are stored safely, they
occupy very little space since they are on the wall, and costs are kept down
as the books are shared between the classes. In Chennai schools we are able
to offer once-a-month reading sessions using the books in the reading
corner. As our reading corner activities increased, our team of resource
people expanded and continues to expand. College students, retired teachers,
teacher trainees, housewives, theatre artists, are all part of the team,
each bringing their own experience to the activities. For the Corporation
schools we needed a much larger team as we had to conduct ten sessions in
each of the ten schools every month for more than thousand children. Our
solution was to involve college students in this as part of their National
Service Scheme programme.
The idea of the
reading corner activities was to introduce a fresh and imaginative approach
to reading. We had to guard against the danger of these activities becoming
an extension of classroom work especially when schools expect results. This
was a problem we faced — we thought of these activities more as
interactions when books could be read, discussed, stories told, written,
pictures drawn. But schools saw our activities as helping in improving
reading fluency, improving 'English', improving conversation skills in
English. While in the other schools the Reading Corners were for the primary
classes, in the Corporation schools it was for classes VI to X. And the
directive was to improve the students' English. We did face a dilemma —
our focus was to encourage children to just read at their own levels, at
their own pace but the focus in some schools was on improving language
skills. Discussions and debates followed and the consensus was that there
was really no contradiction — books were about reading and language and as
children discover the joys of reading they also become confident readers. We
could, through books, offer them that opportunity, that space, which schools
or curricula did not. As for improving English, we realised that the
students in Corporation schools themselves were extremely motivated. English
was the language of empowerment and they had to learn it. And we could make
that learning fun and meaningful through books. The dilemma was
resolved.
The next step was
forming Goodbooks Education Resources.
Schools needed, welcomed our participation. As activities and opportunities
increased we realised that it was another area that Goodbooks had to and
could take up. Goodbooks because of its involvement with publishers and
books also had access to authors, illustrators, experts/specialists in
various fields. The idea was to think of programmes in schools where we
could bring people like these to interact with students and have discussions
and activities like drama, creative writing, classroom projects. There is a
need to provide a creative space for children within the existing system
burdened with unimaginative curricula, textbooks, teaching methods. The
Goodbooks Education Resources provides that space through books and people
involved with books and reading.
Goodbooks Marketing,
the Goodbooks newsletter, the Goodbooks Library and Goodbooks Education
Resources are all part of our efforts to promote children's books, to bring
children closer to books by creating an awareness about books among the
adults involved in buying and selecting books for children and involving
them in our activities. As publishers we realise that we cannot stop with
just creating books, the books have to reach children for which we have to
address parents and teachers. We do that through Goodbooks and invite other
like-minded publishers to do the same.
There are, generally,
three types of readers: the committed book-lover who genuinely appreciates
good books and is willing to pay for it; the large number who willingly
spend on clothes, shoes and pizzas but not on books which are seen as a
waste of money (unless they are glossy imported information books); the
majority for whom none of these are affordable.
It'sclear then that the situation in a country like India is quite
different from developed western nations where the readership, the market,
even the infrastructure can be taken for granted. Here in India, many things
are nebulous and you make rules as you go along, right from creating
awareness about the need for books, to putting them together, to publishing
them to marketing them to making them read.
What
are some of the problems? An education system that has no place for books, a
multilingual culture, economic disparities, non-existent library network,
rigid school system, etc etc. Publishers have to negotiate these problems if
they are interested in reaching these books to readers everywhere. The way
Goodbooks has evolved in a short span of three years is indicative of this.
It has been a continuous process of rethinking, reworking, strategies, as
new and unexpected problems faced us at every stage. These were not so much
marketing strategies as problem-solving ones. The symbiosis is not just
between the publisher and the reader — I wish it were that simple but it
isn't. It is a process that involves more and more people – organisations,
NGOs, government agencies and individuals, translators, municipal officials,
school heads and teachers ad so on. This has been our strength but the sheer
logistics of this creates its own problems......the process continues and
evolves.
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