News, Lebanon Daily Star

May 14, 2004

Adapting school books into Arabic offers kids both a message and 'edutainment'. Project uses 'fun stories that also teach values'

By Amy Braun
Lebanon Daily Star staff

BEIRUT: The attendance sheet is still being passed around as Manal Shamma starts the tape, filling the room with the strains of a jaunty, child-friendly jingle: "We may look different but we feel the same."

Almost 20 women are bent over copies of a picture book titled "Milly, Molly and Beefy," and the atmosphere, purposely reminiscent of a grade two classroom, is such that several of them cannot resist the temptation to raise their hands before they speak.

Shamma is introducing teachers from across Lebanon to Gill Pittar's Milly, Molly series of children's books, written in an attempt to combat racial tensions in Pittar's native New Zealand, which Shamma has begun adapting into Arabic. The project was initiated by Rearden Educational in a bid to offer Arab schoolchildren picture books of a standard that has thus far been unavailable.

The series features Milly, illustrated in a dark umber, and Molly, whose ever-smiling face is the color that often bears the Eurocentric misnomer "flesh." Aside from the ambitious goal of convincing young readers that phenotypic differences are meaningless, each installment teaches an additional "value."

So far, through the four books that Shamma has adapted, young Arab readers can learn how to appreciate differences, take responsibility for their actions, be helpful and deal with grief. She is careful to differentiate between "translating" and "adapting."

"It wasn't just translating sentences into Arabic," she said. "Some issues don't apply in Arab society."

She chose to sidestep the issue of adoption, which is contrary to the beliefs of some in the region, and edited a cross out of one the illustrations. Some character names were also changed in favor of those that would be familiar to Middle Eastern schoolchildren.

Pittar's story, "Jimmy's Seeds," in its Arabic manifestation became, "Nadim's Seeds."

Didactic storytelling is nothing new to the region, Shamma pointed out.

"In Arabic stories there is always a value, and if the teacher is good she can turn it into a lesson," she said, "but there was nothing this straightforward. What we have now is old."

Shamma says she was excited to adapt the series because they were both "fun stories and teach values," a bait-and-switch tactic that is becoming increasingly popular as teachers and parents seek ways to "edutain" children.

Both Shamma and Namir Hanna, managing director of Rearden Educational, the company that is publishing the Milly Molly series in the region, see room for improvement in the children's books in Arabic that are currently on offer.

"It's a vicious cycle," said Hanna. "Publishers cannot publish books of any value because not many people will buy them." Instead, he says, publishers buy the rights to inferior books that are less expensive.

Other shortcomings in the sector are poor translations and authors who "don't go down to the children's level," according to Shamma, who said: "Children don't enjoy the stories that are available."

The aesthetics of children's books have also been a concern, said Hanna: "The illustrations were old, fonts were chosen just because they were the only fonts available and the lettering was too small."

For the Milly Molly books, they decided to keep the original illustrations, and to print the books without short vowels, to make them easier to read.

"The Arabic language is a very rich language, just like engineering is a very good science," said Hanna, "but you don't start learning about concrete when you are 6 years old. You start with Legos."

In bringing the series to the Arab world, their goal was simply to bring schoolchildren something that would be fun to read in their native language.

"We want kids in the Arab world to be as keen on reading as kids in the Western world," Hanna said. And they may even learn to appreciate diversity and help out around the house while they are at it.

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