Asia in the Heart, World on the Mind

New Crayons is a meme started by Susan at Color Online , and it is about sharing the books one has bought, received, or borrowed over the past week. For my New Crayons post this week, I'll be listing the books I bought and received while in Singapore for the Asian Festival of Children's Content (AFCC). Watch out for my reviews of these books! 7 Science Fiction Stories (Scholastic India, 2006) The Best Eid Ever by Asma Mobin-Uddin and illustrated by Laura Jacobsen (Boyds Mills Press, 2007) A Blue Cat's Tale by Sangeetha Madhavan and illustrated by Michelle Chang (Straits Times Press Children, 2008) The Broken Tusk: Stories of the Hindu God Ganesha retold by Uma Krishnaswami and illustrated by Maniam Selven (August House Publishers, 2005) Anything But A Grabooberry by Anushka Ravishankar and Rathna Ramanathan (Tara Publishing, 2004) Baby Panda Finds His Way by Emily Lim and illustrated by Li Dan (Autumn Wonders, 2009) The Boy Without A Name by Idries Shah and illustr...

The National Book Development Council of Singapore and Scholastic Asia present the Scholastic Asian Book Award . The objectives of the Scholastic Asian Book Award are: * To recognize excellence in fiction in Asian stories for children * To showcase the diversity of literary talent within Asia * To encourage and inspire more Asian-themed books and stories The Scholastic Asian Book Award will be given each year to an unpublished manuscript in English (original or translation), set in Asia and targeted at children ages 6 to 12, written by a writer in Asia or of Asian origin. The award-winning manuscript will get a prize of S$10,000 and a plaque, and will be considered by Scholastic Asia for publication. The first and second runners-up will each get a plaque and be offered advice by Scholastic Asia on editing their manuscripts to submit for publication. Entries for the inaugural Scholastic Asian Book Award must be submitted by December 31, 2010 at 5 p.m., to the National Book Development...

First things first: Please check out this Publishers Weekly article by the ever impressive Teri Tan . She gets right to the heart of the inaugural Asian Festival of Children's Content . *** The last day of the festival was the Asian Parents Forum. I didn't attend the forum, as I am not yet a parent and I wanted a free day to go around Singapore before flying back to the Philippines. But for the curious, below is the list of events for the Asian Parents Forum: Brainchild - how parents and teachers can enable children for the future via diverse aspects of the brain's artistry, virtuosity, and sense of play 5 Steps to Make Your Child Self-Confident - tips to help strengthen a child’s self-belief Values-Based Coaching and Mentoring Through Storytelling - tips on raising children's self-esteem, techniques for giving advice that motivates children, and ways to inspire children to set and achieve their own high standards Starting wi...

On day 3 of the Asian Festival of Children's Content , I focused on all the events for the Asian Children's Publishers Symposium. The first event was a panel presentation by Misako Ohnuki (a children's literature professor in Japan and the director of the culture division of the Asia/Pacific Cultural Center for UNESCO ), Sayoni Basu (publishing director at Scholastic India , and Mra Hninzi (a translator of French and English children's books in Myanmar). Ms. Ohnuki explained the production scheme that the ACCU uses for Asian children's books and came to the conclusion that a new mechanism is needed for providing and distributing children's content in Asia (I agree). Ms. Basu explained all the children's book business opportunities in India. Ms. Hninzi ended the panel presentation with an interesting and detailed history of children's literature in Myanmar. I learned, for example, that children's books in Myanmar are didactic (even religious) and that...

Wow. Day 2 of the Asian Festival of Children's Content was even better than day 1. The first presentation I chose to attend featured Karina Bolasco, the founder of Anvil Publishing Inc. in the Philippines, and Clive Newman, manager of sales, marketing, distribution, and foreign rights at Fremantle Press in Australia. Ms. Bolasco gave an overview of the distribution and sales of children's books in the Philippines and raised the challenges of Asians selling their children's books to other Asians. (Books from the West are cheaper than books from the East because they have much larger print runs.) Mr. Newman explained the challenge of book distribution in Australia (because of geography) and his experience venturing into digital distribution. Daphne Lee and Holly Thompson inspired us and showed us just how to create the best multicultural books for readers. Ms. Lee, a children's book editor in Malaysia, discussed the various definitions and objectives of multic...