New Baby Book Gets Caribbean Babies Reading
Mylo Freeman creates a picture book for babies in the Caribbean region.
How do you get babies in the Caribbean region of the Kingdom of the Netherlands to read? To achieve this, Biblionef recently joined forces with the Letterenfonds (Dutch Foundation for Literature), Stichting Lezen (Foundation for Reading) and children’s book author and illustrator Mylo Freeman. The result: a baby book that will soon be available in libraries and BoekStart kits on all islands.
It is the calm before the storm at gallery WG Kunst in Amsterdam. During Kinderboekenweek (Week of the Children’s book), dozens of school classes will drop by here to admire Mylo Freeman’s prints and drawings. Among children, she is best known as the author of the Princess Arabella series, in which a dark-skinned princess has all kinds of adventures.
That ethnic aspect is important to the multi-award-winning author, she explains, walking around the room. “There is little diversity in the children’s books on offer. In my work, I not only want to create books that every child can identify with, but also hope to inspire as a dark-skinned picture book maker.”
It makes Freeman the perfect author of the picture book that Biblionef and Stichting Lezen aim to distribute throughout the Caribbean in the coming months. The book will be published in several bilingual variants: Dutch combined with Papiamentu, English and Spanish – four languages widely spoken on the islands.
BoekStart on the islands
The initiative for this project was in the hands of the Letterenfonds, which contacted Biblionef last year, says director Bethzy Gianella Chiang. “Suzanne Meeuwissen, who deals with talent development and cultural diversity there, was investigating how the fund could help increase the supply of Papiamento-language books for children in the Caribbean. In our discussions, we quickly concluded that we should start at the beginning, by getting parents to read to their babies from the beginning of their lives.”
That idea dovetails nicely with the cooperation Biblionef has had with Stichting Lezen, jointly responsible for the BoekStart programme, since 2021. ‘The intention is to roll out BoekStart to the entire Caribbean,’ says Gianella Chiang. ‘We know the libraries well and can easily respond to their requests. Biblionef already sends new books to every island in the Caribbean at least once a year. So, we came to the conclusion that the BoekStart kit should also include books that are relevant to the lives of Caribbean children.’
Multilingual baby books
The orange suitcase is rapidly gaining recognition on the islands. Hopefully, Freeman’s picture book, of which about seven hundred copies will be placed in the suitcases from next year onwards, will help.“Until now, only books in Dutch were in the suitcases. For parents, the multilingualism of this book will hopefully lower the threshold to start reading aloud. If they can do it in their own language, they are all the more likely to get involved. And when children see that their parents enjoy reading aloud, they enjoy it more themselves, I know from my own experience” says Gianella Chiang.
Unfortunately, the supply of multilingual baby books is still quite scarce at the moment, especially for the languages spoken in the Caribbean. “There are books in Papiamentu,’ Gianella Chiang knows, ‘but they rarely make the combination with another language. To my knowledge, this is the first baby book made specifically for the Caribbean. It is essential for children to be able to identify with the characters in a book. That makes this book all the more important.”
Star author
That star author Mylo Freeman, an ambassador for Biblionef for several years, was willing to lend her talent to the book makes Gianella Chiang. “She was our first choice: she embodies the emerging diversity in children’s books. Also, her books are very well read both in the Caribbean and in the Netherlands. We know how enthusiastic children are about her work, so we are confident that this too will be a success.”
Freeman did not decide on her own what the content of the book would be: the libraries in the Caribbean were each given a say. Because familiarity is paramount, Freeman decided to outline a day in the life of a baby in the book. It includes activities such as getting up, drinking a bottle and also being read to.
In the Netherlands, too, many libraries are looking for ways to enrich their multilingual collections. Biblionef is therefore investigating the possibility of providing the book to Dutch libraries as well. “Plenty of parents with a Caribbean background live in the Netherlands. They will be only too happy with this baby book.”
If it is up to Gianella Chiang, this will not be the only edition. “We already have our own publication Poes en Hond, which is available in five bilingual editions: Dutch combined with Arabic, Ukrainian, Tigrinya, Dari and Farsi. In this way, we also serve African families. The intention is to expand this offering even further.”
National Read Aloud Days
The intention is to usher in the publication of the baby book in a huge way during National Read Aloud Days in January next year. Freeman will then travel to the Caribbean to present the book at libraries and nurseries, including read-aloud sessions and information sessions for parents on the importance of reading aloud. In the preceding months, the books will have been distributed across all the islands.
“When I was asked to create this book, I just stopped to think: how is it possible,” Freeman said. “I had wanted to write and illustrate a baby book for so long, but it never came about. And the context of this project also provided an excellent opportunity for me to feature a dark-skinned family. To my knowledge, however shocking, that has not been done before.”
In terms of storyline, a baby book should not be too complicated, Freeman immediately realised. “For me, familiarity was most important. A day in the life of a baby is universal: no matter where you come from, in a child’s life certain activities are always the same.”
Like Gianella Chiang, Freeman hopes that children in the Caribbean will enjoy the read-aloud ritual with the book. “I can totally imagine it: how they will have fun together with the book in their hands learning new words. And who knows, maybe they will become real Princess Arabella fans in later life.”
Written bij Anne van den Dool
