In the second week of February, a three-member team from Pratham Books visited Rohtak, Haryana to conduct a translation workshop with 25 teachers from 20 districts. Little did we anticipate the warmth and love we would receive from the participants who came from all over Haryana. But what was truly inspiring was that these teachers stayed overnight at the Government Senior Secondary School in preparation for this workshop. They were so self driven that they had explored StoryWeaver and made themselves a little familiar with it even before we entered the school premises.

The main aim of the workshop was to conduct a translation hackathon. This meant working with teachers to translate  Pratham Books titles to Haryanvi on our digital platform, StoryWeaver. Every teacher translated at least three Level 1 and Level 2 books. But before that, they all took turns telling us about their favorite childhood stories that have stayed with them effortlessly, emphasizing the huge retentive power of stories. 

 

 

Their welcome sign for us on the blackboard

It was exciting, the idea of translating children's books to their first language. Most of us won't question the existence of books in the languages that we first spoke at home. Not so much for anyone whose mother language is Haryanvi. The teachers speak it, but are not used to reading Haryanvi in books. Also, it changes its dialect with every district and even within a district. So the challenge was to translate stories in a way that's mostly uniform and can be understood by a child who belongs to any part of the state. The discussions that ensued among the teachers reflected their expertise in the language but also the mutual respect they had for each other's opinions. They reviewed each other's work in pairs and with the final feedback incorporated, every teacher enthusiastically read out their work to the whole class.

The most important appeal for everyone involved here was that in two days, this translation hackathon yielded a proper set of 71 Haryanvi books! More and more children across India, and specifically in Haryana, can now read stories in their own language.

During the workshop, we talked about the value of translation, the concerns behind it, and the importance of translating meaning to meaning instead of word to word, and from one cultural context to another. We talked about StoryWeaver, our open repository of children's books, and the ways they can use this platform in their classrooms for free to enable joy of reading among students. The teachers agreed that the essence of their language lies in its humour, and there was plenty of that for the time we spent with them!

After a delicious meal, we were ready to leave and bid farewell to the fresh air of the town when the teachers insisted that we stay a bit longer. Some teachers performed impromptu plays for us, some sang and others made us laugh.

It was truly a memorable workshop with every teacher an eager champion of Haryanvi in their own school and in their own district. And with that, the number of languages available on StoryWeaver rose to 107.  There could have been no better way to ring in the International Mother Language Day.

Browse and read the Haryanvi stories on StoryWeaver.

 

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Pratham Books is a not-for-profit children's book publisher that was set up in 2004 to publish good quality, affordable books in many Indian languages. Our mission is to see ‘a book in every child’s hand’ and we have spread the joy of reading to millions of children in India. In 13 years, we have published over 3000 books and distributed over 14 million copies of our storybooks and 16 million story cards.

Last year, Pratham Books' increased its footprint by going digital. As an industry leader, we were one of the first publishers in the country to open license our content. All this content is now available on StoryWeaver, which is a digital platform that hosts stories in languages from India and beyond, so that every child can have an endless stream of stories in her mother tongue to read and enjoy. The stories can be read, translated, versioned or downloaded for free. All stories on the platform are openly licensed.

Donate-a-book, is a unique crowd-funding platform for children’s books. The platform helps to bridge the gap between individuals who want to help children read and those organizations, schools and individuals who need books for children.

At Pratham Books, we are shaping a new, innovative approach to multilingual publishing because we believe that every child needs good books to read in a language of their choice.

Pratham Books is looking for a Graphic Designer to join our digital team. This is a full-time position based in Bangalore.

The candidate will be responsible for

• Designing picture books for print.

• Adapting original design files (in print), and converting it into sizes and designs that are suitable for StoryWeaver - Pratham Books’ digital story platform.

• Working closely with our Content Team to create and adapt content for digital and print mediums.

• Working closely with the production team for the first print run of the books.

 

Pratham Books is a not-for-profit children's books publisher. Pratham Books’ StoryWeaver is a digital repository of openly-licensed, multilingual children’s stories.

 

Required skills:

• Expertise in InDesign Creative Suite, Photoshop, Illustrator, CorelDraw

• Basic graphic design skills and an interest in book layouts

• Basic understanding of the printing process (digital and offset)

• Minimum one to three years of relevant experience

• Ability to work quickly and accurately on design files

• Be a team player, quick learner

• Good communication skills

Salary will be commensurate with qualifications and experience. Please send your resume to [email protected] with ‘Graphic Designer - Digital' in the subject line of the email.

 

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Aindri is a communications designer specializing in narrative illustration and animation. She is one of the members of The Kadak Collective. She has illustrated two books for Pratham Books: Apu's Giant Earthquake by Sudeshna Shome Ghosh and Food Monster by Meenu Thomas. Both the stories are very to read, download, print and share on StoryWeaver. Aindri writes about how she created the distinctive textured illustrations for 'Food Monster'.

Meenu’s story Food Monster instantly reminded me of the potato and bhindi block printing classes I had in school. I felt the same approach and materials would go perfectly with her story.

When returning to that memory, I came across the technique of Gyotaku (gyo “fish” + taku “rubbing”) a traditional Japanese method of fish printing that originated in the mid-19th century as a way for fishermen to record the size and characteristics of their daily catches. So block printing with food was not just child’s play. Infact, before cameras, fishermen often recorded large or unusual specimens by making ink block reproductions of their catch. The Sumi ink which was used to take the impression would be easily washed away after recording the catch, so the fish was in perfect condition to be consumed. (You can read more about Gyotaku here and here.)

Video: Gyotaku by Naoki from YouTube

I scanned the images which I later layered and collaged with hand drawn illustrations.

Some of the shapes were easy to spot, like the circles and rings in the cross-section of peppers and cucumbers, some impressions especially of the herbs looked like tiny version of trees and some impressions like strawberries made seamless patterns on the page. Here are impressions of strawberry and corn:

A fairground favourite, the carousel, made with celery, lemon, basil, pepper & pepper seeds.

A panipuri stall near a tree: made with basil, corn, cucumber, celery and garam masala.

Aindri has generously shared a  library of the prints she created for our community to use.You can find them on Aindri's profile page (scroll down to see them all!)

You are most welcome to use them as you wish, do please tag us @pbstoryweaver and @aindri_c with your favourite food shape. Good luck!

 

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