Spotathon 2016 has come to an end and we have been overwhelmed and touched by the amazing response the campaign received from the illustrator community.

The idea for Spotathon came from what we saw as a need for affordable spotting book for children. Spotting books are a wonderful way to engage children (small ones, big ones, and yes… very big ones!), can help develop pre-reading skills in the smallest bookworms and most importantly they’re just SO MUCH FUN!

So we asked illustrators to share one spotting illustration and answer key and upload it to StoryWeaver and create a mini spotting book with their entry. We also hoped that the campaign would familiarise illustrators with how they can share their work on StoryWeaver through the very easy Image Uploader. 

From deep underground to outer space!

Illustrators looked far and wide for inspiration for their Spotathon illustrations. From outer space shenanigans to life underground, we saw an amazing variety of themes emerge that are sure to delight children and keep them busy spotting.

 Zainab Tambawalla's 'The Crazy Circus' 

 

  Kabini Amin's 'Forest Friend's Party'

 Kavita Singh Kale's 'Nainital, a Wonderful Hill Station in India' 

 

We were overjoyed to see  illustrators we’ve worked with in the past, like Rajiv Eipe, Soumya Menon, Niloufer Wadia, Greystroke and Samidha Gunjal take part. And equally delighted to see new artists join in the spotting fun too! 

We'd like to share two small stories, that are a testament to the power of open source and joyful reading!

Cyrille L'Argillier, a community member has translated a number of Spotathon entries to French showing how open licences can really give content wings and help stories take flight. We hope to see many more translations of the Spotathon mini activity books in the days to come, so that more children can enjoy them in languages of their choice.

We received a lovely email from Annapoorni Trichur, a teacher with E-VidyaLoka and Udaan in Hyderabad. She shared Megha Vishwanath's "An Evening in the Spice market" with her students. Here's what she had to say: "They were so engrossed looking for things in the picture they didn't even realise they were learning!"

In the next few weeks, we'll be working on putting together an e-book with the best entries from Spotathon. This will be published on StoryWeaver. But do remember that each entry to Spotathon can be enjoyed on its own, as a mini-book.

We hope you enjoy the spotting books that have emerged from this lovely campaign. If you’re an illustrator, remember that you can upload your work to StoryWeaver with great ease. Your doodles, black and white sketches, line drawings… do consider sharing them with the world under the CC-BY4.0 license on StoryWeaver.

We’d love to hear from you! If you have any comments, feedback to share on Spotathon then write to us at [email protected]

 

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Swati Pandit is pursuing her BA in NMKRV College For Women. She loves learning languages and is fluent in 16 of them! She is passionate about music and is learning the violin and flute and can also play the keyboard, guitar, ukulele. She also sings, writes and composes poetry!  Recently her book of poetry Trilingual Poetry got released by professor Dr.S.Ranganath.
 

Q: What type of person do you think makes the best translator for children’s stories?

According to me a person who can think from the perspective of a child....A person who is open to various changes.... And a person who can imagine widely and wildly is the best translator for children's stories.

Q: Do you have any advice for anyone interested in becoming a translator?

My advice is that, please come and discover this amazing world of translating. This work requires a lot of patience and passion. So, people interested out there set your brains on fire and you'll fall in love with translating.

Q:  What is your personal relationship to language and/or translation?

Each language has its own beauty. And I see each language as a beautiful living entity. This is a musical instrument which brings people from various places together.

Q:  When you’ve been given a story to translate, what’s your process, and how long does it generally take?

I have a habit of reading the given story twice... First I give a general reading then I thoroughly read it again...I understand the gist and go on with the translation... It takes 4 to 5 days for the final version.

Q:  What do stories in translation bring to young readers?

If a story is translated in their very own or their dear language they will feel delighted to read it. They will read the story with ease and will get some interest towards reading more.

Q: You’ve translated stories for us. Which has been your favorite to work on?

My most favorite stories are Chutti and Cyborg Taata.
 

Q: What is the hardest thing about translating from English into Kannada? How do you navigate words or phrases that are tricky to translate??

Sometimes finding appropriate words at the right places becomes tricky and then choosing the nearer word becomes the solution. Sometimes this paves the way for inserting a new and interesting phrase. Sometimes change in the voice is needed. It's challenging but it's fun at the same time.

Q: How do you feel when your story reaches the child?

I feel satisfied and really happy that a child can understand and interpret things!

Q:  Translating stories must have required research when it came to STEM related terms and concepts.. How did you explore new objects and concepts?

When it comes to STEM stories I have referred to some books and understood what it is and then I proceeded. While translating Cyborg Dadu to Kannada I got to know various things about how cyborg can change mankind etc. It has really expanded my knowledge.

Q:  As a Multilingual Translator, Young Poet how do you connect yourself with Children's Literature, what do you feel is the challenge in this regard?

Children's literature is known for its widespread imagination and energising themes and being a poet requires childlike heart. More than challenge I feel that it is a trigger to the monotonous mind of mine.
 

Q:  As a student and voracious reader, Stories in which form are best received by kids? Poetry, Picture books, Read aloud etc?

According to me, poetry and picture books are the best ones to give into a child's hand because the rhythm of the  poetry tends to get registered in their minds. And picture books makes their thinking more colorful and picture is grasped by them very quickly. I personally am a great fan of picture and poetry books.

 

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StoryWeaver celebrated 2 special milestones on May 29:

1. We crossed 5 MILLION reads on StoryWeaver! ✨
2. We now offer storybooks in 250 languages! 📚

A big thank you to our wonderful community for being such an integral part of what we do. Authors, illustrators and publishers who have open-licensed their content at scale. Linguists and translators who have introduced us to new languages. Educators, parents and storytellers around the world who have welcomed us into their reading routine, and into the hearts of their children.

Here’s to the next 5 million reads, and nurturing the next generation of readers. 💛

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