World Kid Lit Month: explore the diverse world of global children’s literature
S
EPTEMBER is World Kid Lit Month: the perfect time to travel the world through children’s books. It’s a month for young readers to expand their reading horizons, and adults too! How to take part? Simply read a book – and encourage young people to read a book – from somewhere else in the world.
It could be a story set in another country besides your own, a children’s book translated into English from another language, or perhaps a story written by an author who’s from another part of the world. Adult readers are encouraged to share an international book you’ve enjoyed recently on social media with the hashtag #WorldKidLitMonth, or to showcase some of the global books you have in your library or school collection. It’s the ideal time for a Read the World wall display with book covers spread out over a world map. What better way to challenge ourselves to stock diverse books that represent cultures, ethnicities and languages across the globe? In schools, staff and pupils could embark on a Read the World challenge: how many countries can your class visit this term, starting in September and reading globally up until Christmas?
Whatever the age group you work
with, you’ll find suggestions of inclusive, international reads at the World Kid Lit website. Resources and reviews cover children’s books from – or set in – dozens of countries across five continents, as well as fiction, non- fiction, graphic novels and poetry translated into English from 30+ languages.
The Invisible Story – written by Jaime Gamboa, illustrated by Wen Hsu Chen, translated from Spanish by Daniel Hahn (Lantana Publishing, 2024) Costa Rica.
A gorgeously illustrated story about a braille book waiting patiently to be appreciated, that comes alive when a blind girl opens it up and can read its magical pages.
Autumn-Winter 2024
We also recommend exploring Outside In World (www.outsideinworld.
org.uk), Kids Read the World (https://
mykidsreadtheworld.wordpress.com), and the Global Literature in Libraries Initiative (
https://glli-us.org/category/ worldkidlit-wednesday-weekend). To help you get started, here are 19 recommended books for children and teens, from 16 countries across the Americas, Africa, Asia, Europe, and Oceania.
Bon voyage, wherever your reading takes you!
0-5 years
Grandma’s Roof Garden – written and illustrated by Tang Wei, translated from Chinese by Kelly Zhang (Levine Querido, 2024) – China. A fun, rhyming story of a resource- ful granny who uses the roof of her apartment block to grow fruit and vegetables for her friends and family.
Ruth Ahmedzai Kemp is an Arabic teacher, literary translator (working from Arabic, Russian and German into English) and managing director of World Kid Lit CIC. She writes about border-crossing literature for young people (#worldkidlit) at Words Without Borders, World Literature Today, SCBWI Words & Pics, Federation of Children’s Book Groups, and World Kid Lit blog,and gives talks and workshops in schools about translation and reading the world.
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