StoryWeaver Spotlight: Pallavi Rao
Posted by Remya Padmadas on October 04, 2019Pallavi Rao has done her MA in English and loves music, literature and painting. She is the daughter of well-known Kannada writer Vaidehi, and has worked on a compilation of talks by eminent theatre personality Sri B.V Karanth (edited by Sri Muralidhar Upadhya). Pallavi has been teaching PU students in several places and currently resides in Delhi. She has translated several storybooks to Kannada including The Night the Moon Went Missing and A Whistling Good Idea on StoryWeaver.
Q: You carve out time for translating children’s books from a busy life. What do stories in translation bring to young readers?
Young readers unknowingly come to know the culture, way of life and language at a young age itself. I think it is very important to imbibe these qualities at a young age.
Q: What is your personal relationship to language and/or translation?
Kannada being my mother tongue, I have read and listened to several great writers and thinkers in Kannada. I breathe my language and this helps me bring stories into Kannada.
Q: What is your take on translation?
Translation is a very responsible task. You have to translate the story keeping its original flavour intact and at the same time giving it the flavor of the language it is translated into. One should have a grip on both the languages i.e., from which you are translating and the one to which it is being translated into.
Q: Translating certain stories must have required a lot of research, especially when it came to STEM-related terms and concepts. For example, stories like A Whistling Good Idea. How did you explore new objects and concepts?
When I read a story to be translated, I dwell on it and begin thinking it in my language. It helps me to understand the story in local circumstances so that I can translate accordingly. While translating concept-oriented stories like ‘A Whistling Good Idea’, I felt it was such a nice way to make a child understand the concept in a playful manner. Difficult concepts are quite hard for children, but when the same concept is told through games, it becomes simple and hence is more understandable and easy for a child.
'A Whistling Good Idea', translated by Pallavi Rao
Q: You have contributed for us immensely. How has the StoryWeaver journey been? What is one big takeaway from this experience?
Overwhelming. By repeatedly wearing a child’s shoe while translating, it has made me more observant and my mind keeps weaving stories for children from whatever I observe around me!
Q: How do you feel when your story reaches the child?
If I can ignite the imagination of a child and add to the child’s vocabulary through my stories, nothing would be more satisfying.
Q: What is your key driver in taking up translation of stories into Kannada?
I have a very strong feeling towards my language. Children in big cities in my state rarely speak Kannada, which is very disturbing. Through these stories, if I can sow seed of love for the language of the land - that would drive me to translate more and more stories.
Q: How else do you think we can join hands to take more stories to more children in more languages?
India has abundant folk stories and poems for children in regional languages. They have to be made reachable to more children in other languages too. For example, in Kannada, we have stories of Panje Magesh Rao, Hoysala, Ullala Mangesh Rao, Ugrana Mangesh Rao, Rajaratnam and so on. Apart from translating stories from English to regional languages, I feel that we should also translate stories from regional languages to English and to other regional languages as well.
Q: When you have been given a story to translate, what is your process, and how long does it generally take?
I read the entire story two or three times, linger on the story and try to visualize the same while working on other chores. I try to keep the language simple, use more of sound words to make it more attractive and increase the vocabulary in children.
Q: What is the hardest thing about translating from English into Kannada? How do you navigate words or phrases that are tricky to translate?
Certain English concepts are not present in Kannada. For example, we don’t have a ‘cape’ in our costume. In such times we have to coin a word in Kannada and ensure that the image is translated successfully to the child.
Q: Do you have any advice for anyone interested in becoming a translator?
Keep the language as simple as possible and make it interesting for children by visualising the story yourself to get the best output.
Q: A book you'd like to recommend to other translators?
From the ones that I have translated it would be ‘A Whistling Good Idea’.
Q: Can you tell us anything about yourself and your job that would surprise us?
Cooking and painting interests me to a large extent. Experimenting techniques in both the fields are the same, I feel.
We would love for you to join the conversation by leaving your thoughts in the comments section, or on social media: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram
Be the first to comment.The Soma Experience: Storybooks by and for children
Posted by Shaoni Dasgupta on March 03, 2021Post by Demere Kitunga, Chief Executive Officer, Readership for Learning and Development—Soma
Founded in 2008 in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, Soma Book Café is a readership promotion space and innovative co-creation hub for literary expression and multimedia storytelling approaches. It provides different arenas for literary expression and discourse; promotes reading for pleasure and encourages independent pursuit of knowledge. Soma, which means read or learn in Kiswahili, is an apt name for an organization that actively encourages both.
Soma believes strongly in the creative ability of children. It runs a Saturday morning programme called Watoto na Vitabu (Kiswahili for children and/with books). In 2019 with assistance from Neil Butcher & Associates, Soma began a pilot project—the Kalamu Ndogo (little scribes) book series to undertake a research and writing process with children on a pilot basis to generate insights and data on early literacy content creation with and for children. Children wrote, illustrated, and selected the stories they liked best.
Three groups of children from different backgrounds took part in the project—a cohort from the Watoto na Vitabu Saturday programme and two classes from after-school centres in Dar es Salaam. The four children whose stories were selected worked with published authors, illustrators, designers, and other book professionals to turn their ideas and words into a professional product in print and online.
All of the children participated in workshops and brainstormed on story-writing and creativity. They were encouraged to share experiences by talking about their lives and to stretch their imaginations. We used all kinds of prompts—children’s books, including comic books; cuttings from magazines; sketches from a fully illustrated children’s book; and a number of objects like a ball, board games, and objects in the natural environment like twigs or leaves.
"We discovered some children were good illustrators and storytellers; others were good observers. The children were improving their skills from one day to the next." - Patrick Joseph Gongwe, HK Learning Centre
We can see how this process inspired the children’s work. Nakiete Mlaki drew her main character after looking at children’s book illustrations. Larry Semiono’s story, The Poor Lady, was partly influenced by a magazine picture of a helicopter. The children also wrote about their lives—feeling different and not belonging, poverty, or dueling co-wives, for example. These are the four prize winners:
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The Lonely Frog by Nakiete Mlaka about a young frog who feels alienated from her peers, but who possesses an unappreciated gift that will save the community. The story was written in English and translated into Kiswahili.
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Chungu cha Ajabu in Kiswahili by Farida Chacha* about two friends, a prince and a commoner, who became ensnared in trouble because of the king’s avarice and bad faith. Farida’s story is influenced by traditional African/Arabic folklore.
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The Poor Lady in English by Larry Semiono about an elderly lady who wants to fly and realizes her dream when a wooden stick turns into a flying wooden tray.
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Mbuguma na Nasiru in Kiswahili, by Sharifa Shemputa about two half-brothers braving a journey into the jungle to fetch medicinal plants to save their ailing (and argumentative) mothers’ lives.
The author with Nakiete Mlaki, author of The Lonely Frog
The project, which was complicated and ambitious, had its ups and downs. A number of mid-course revisions along the way were necessary. But we were able to accomplish many of our objectives, even with the COVID-19 lockdown in March 2020. We saw that given the right environment, children are as skilled storybook authors as adults are. Kalamu Ndogo was predicated on producing three works in Kiswahili but ended up with four published stories—two in Kiswahili, two in English.
A case study on this project will be found here at the Soma Book Café website and here at the Early Learning Resource Network website.
Three of the stories can be accessed on StoryWeaver and at Soma Book Café. They carry a CC BY 4.0 licence.
Please send us your comments about our work and the stories. We welcome sharing and translation!
Unfortunately, Farida’s mother withdrew permission for her daughter to participate in the project and we have not published Farida’s story. Farida Chacha is not her real name
Creating 'Super Readers' with StoryWeaver
Posted by Remya Padmadas on September 12, 2016Communities Rising runs after school programs for children attending government primary schools in underserved rural villages in the Villupuram District of Tamil Nadu. When they started their new reading program, Betsy McCoy, founder and President of Communities Rising asked the students "How many of you ever read books for pleasure?" Not a single student said yes. Fast forward two years, and a totally different picture has emerged.
“All of our students are reading every day; story books, non-fiction books, biographies, all kinds of books. They are discovering the joy of reading! Without StoryWeaver, this remarkable change in our students’ reading habits would not have been possible.” shared Betsy.
Communities Rising was struggling to find beginner reader books in English and Tamil that the children would enjoy reading at affordable prices. Plus, they discovered that once their student’s were bitten by the reading bug, they could not keep up with their voracious appetite for books!
StoryWeaver’s relationship with Communities Rising started earlier this year, when they attended one of a workshop and demonstration in Bangalore. Through StoryWeaver, Communities Rising has access to a wealth of books in both English and Tamil, which they can download quickly and print to share with children. StoryWeaver also provides them a choice of titles in a variety of genres, including books on STEM subjects. If a particular title is not available in Tamil, they can translate it to Tamil on the platform itself and have it ready for the children to be enjoyed.
“We especially love the bilingual books printed in both Tamil and English that allow our students to read in both languages on the same page. These books are a tremendous help with comprehension - it's like getting two books for the price of one!” said Betsy.
Communities Rising have downloaded all of the StoryWeavers titles in levels 1 and 2 in English, and levels 1-3 in Tamil. They are in the process of printing and distributing one set of all these titles to each of their 6 centres, thus reaching 360-400 students.
“We tried printing the books in two formats. One with single pages hole punched and attached with rings and the second with the pages stapled in the center. Durability is an issue and so we printed samples on heavy, card stock.” shared Betsy.
Creating Super Readers
The organisation believes that reading makes children learners for life and encourages reading in a big way in their after school programme. Each child is assigned a 'book box' which contains books that he/she must read each week - in both English and Tamil. Children are incentivised to read through the SuperReader program which has been developed by Communities Rising.
“Each student has a CR reading necklace. They get a bead for each book that their teacher certifies they have actually read. After reading 10 books, they get ‘Readers Are Leaders’ pencils, and after 20 books, they get pins that proclaim them ‘CR Super Readers’. I'm happy to say that we are giving our many pencils.” said Betsy who believes that the necklaces, reading pencils and Super Reader pins help build a sense of community and sense of belonging to Communities Rising amongst the children.
A CR Super Reader necklace.
At the end of the year, the top readers from each center will travel to Chennai to visit Tara Boks for a program there and the top reading center will have a book party!
“Last year, I told some of our kids, that I was looking forward to hearing complaints from their parents that they were spending too much time reading, instead of playing or helping at home. We aren’t quite there yet, but with the help of StoryWeaver, I have no doubt those complaints aren't far away.” said Betsy.
We look forward to hearing those complaints too!
You can follow Communities Rising on FaceBook. If you’re an organisation working with young children and feel that StoryWeaver could benefit them, please write to us at [email protected]. Do remember to add Freedom to Read in the subject line!
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