[lg policy] Laos: Publishing children's books =?windows-1252?Q?=96_?=and delivering them by elephant

Fri Feb 25 17:20:06 UTC 2011

Publishing children's books – and delivering them by elephant

Sasha Alyson hauls (sometimes by elephant) children's books in the
local language to kids in rural Laos eager to learn to read.

By Tibor Krausz, Correspondent
posted February 21, 2011 at 11:14 am EST
Luang Prabang, Laos —

The little booklet contains riddles about animals – and the children
in Pakseuang village just love it. Squeezing around a young Laotian
staffer from Big Brother Mouse, the 40 or so second-graders listen
with bated breath as he reads out the rhyming riddles to them.
"Buffalo!" "Snake!" "Frog!" they shout back their guesses. At each
correct answer they jump up cheering with arms raised.

Books – even simple ones like the 32-page "What Am I?" – hold a
magical appeal for Laotian children. Many of them have never seen a
book, much less owned one. "What struck me when I came here [as a
tourist in 2003]," says Sasha Alyson, the American expatriate who
founded Big Brother Mouse, a local children's publisher, "was that I
never saw a book for children."

The literacy rate in Laos, an impoverished communist holdout of 6
million people bordering Vietnam, is around 70 percent. Yet most
people have nothing to read besides old dog-eared textbooks and
government pamphlets. At many village schools blackboards are the sole
means of instruction, and children lack even pencils and paper.

"I knew I couldn't do education reform here," notes Mr. Alyson, who
once ran a niche publishing firm in Boston. "But I could set up a
small publishing project." So he did. In 2006 Alyson obtained the very
first publishing license in Luang Prabang, a historic northern town on
the Mekong River where he now lives. He recruited several young locals
he had met by chance: One was a waiter who wanted to become a writer,
another a Buddhist novice monk eager to try something different.

The mission of the small but thriving enterprise, which has a bookish
cartoon mouse as its logo, is to "make literacy fun for children in
Laos." On a recent Friday morning, Alyson and several of his helpers
were in Pakseuang to hold a "book party" at the local elementary
school. They led the children in playing games and singing songs with
words like "Books are good/ Books make me smart."

The children then each had their pick from a stash of new books – and
instantly lost themselves in them. Khamla, a shy 9-year-old with a
Young Pioneer's red kerchief, chose "Animals of Africa." At a previous
book party she received "The Monkey King" storybook.

"When I read, I feel happy," she says.

Based in a modest two-story house in Luang Prabang, Alyson and his two
dozen helpers produce more than 30 new titles a year in print runs of
6,000 copies each: colorful alphabet books, science primers, fairy
tales, and folk tales. All the books are produced in-house and most
are written by "Uncle Sasha" and his Laotian staff.

"When I was 7, my parents bought me 'The Cat in the Hat.' That turned
me on to reading," Alyson says. "Most Laotian children have no
comparable memories. Many don't even know what a book is. Sometimes
you have to show them how to turn a page."

Inspired by the playful style of Dr. Seuss, Alyson, who taught himself
to read and write the Lao language, has penned more than two dozen
children's books.

"New, Improved Buffalo," for one, tells the story of a village boy who
outfits his trusted mount in various ways, much to the animal's
dismay. Like all the publisher's books, it's printed on glossy paper
and illustrated in a charming, idiosyncratic style by local teenage
artists recruited from schools and villages through drawing
competitions. It sells for just 15,000 kip ($2).

Alyson's team also sets local folk tales down in writing to preserve
them and translates out-of-copyright foreign children's classics,
retelling them in a local context. In its version of "The Wizard of
Oz," illustrated by a 16-year-old Hmong boy, Dorothy is a girl called
Kham who is swept away by a flood from Luang Namtha Province to the
magical land of Oz.

Most of the books – and the "parties" at which they're given to
children in 500 villages near and far – are sponsored by foreign
donors, many of whom are tourists like Stuart and Alison McKenzie, a
couple from Glasgow, Scotland, on their honeymoon.

"[Alyson and his staff] seem very engaged," Mr. McKenzie says. The
couple paid for the book party in Pakseuang. "It's great to see
children so happy with something we take for granted in the West," he
adds.

Printing books is one thing. Getting them to children in remote
villages is another. Alyson's helpers, several of whom are from Hmong
and Khmu villages, regularly fan out across the rugged countryside.

Lugging stacks of books strapped to their backs, small teams undertake
arduous days-long treks on foot, by boat – and at times astride
Boom-Boom, a sturdy Asian elephant whose name means "books" in Lao.
Boom-Boom now even has her own book, "The Little Elephant That Could."

In village after village they set up "junior libraries" for children
in the bamboo hut of a local volunteer.

"Very few people read books in Laos," says Siphone Vouthisakdee, who
is from a village where only five people have finished primary school.
He now writes, edits, and designs books at Big Brother Mouse.

"But some children are becoming little bookworms," he says, "and take
their books everywhere with them."

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/making-a-difference/2011/0221/Publishing-children-s-books-and-delivering-them-by-elephant

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 Harold F. Schiffman

Professor Emeritus of
 Dravidian Linguistics and Culture
Dept. of South Asia Studies
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305

Phone:  (215) 898-7475
Fax:  (215) 573-2138

Email:  haroldfs at gmail.com
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/

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