[AFCC 2013] Launch of Project Splash! Asia and an Invitation for more Water-themed books

One of our projects for the Asian Festival of Children Content this year was the launching of a bibliography of water-themed stories from and about Asia. This is in keeping with 2013 being the International Year of Water. For several months now, our Committee has been very busy collecting titles and sifting through a vast collection to ensure that we do a good representation and mix of stories across different genre from various parts of the world.

And since we were loathe to turn away any book that features water in it, we also included transnational themes that celebrate the significance of water in our lives – books that transcend cultural and regional boundaries.

Here are some of the photographs from the launching of Project Splash! Asia – a truly inspired concept.

Claire Chiang, the Chairman of the AFCC Board of Advisors was unfortunately unable to make it during the Launch. The amazing, quick-witted, funny-without-even-trying Nury Vittachi read through Claire’s Welcome Remarks and added his own commentary about this project.

The panel was moderated by the beautiful and articulate Corinne Robson from Paper Tigers who is also one of the highly-involved members of our Committee. Beside me is Evelyn Wong who made certain, in her own gentle way, that we are continually on schedule and that we keep track of the little details that we should be made aware of for our project.

I am very privileged to be working with such a hard working team committed in ensuring that we gather as much books as we can connected with our theme. I was unfortunately still recovering from coughs and colds during our presentation so was unable to give my hundred percent effervescent self during my short spiel. Still heavily medicated, my powers of articulation were sadly affected making it difficult for me to speak in most parts. It was very fortunate that our panel was filled with lovely ladies bursting with so much excitement and energy.

We were joined by amazing authors Naomi Kojima (our featured Storyteller this month and author of Singing Shijimi Clams – farthest right) and Holly Thompson author of Wakame Gatherers.

Singaporean author Emily Lim also joined us. She is the writer of the beautiful picture books Little Otter Goes Fishing and A Very Big Storm.

Naomi Kojima holding up her lovely picture book Singing Shijimi Clams, which we will be featuring here in GatheringBooks very soon.

And here is the team of Project Splash! Asia. From L-R: Corinne Robson from PaperTigers; Noor Aini binte Mohamed – Senior Librarian, Public Libraries Singapore; myself from GatheringBooks; our illustrators from Singapore Polytechnic – Karen Mei Jia Qi and Nursyafiqah Binte Jusman; and Evelyn Wong, Partnership Director of AFCC.

Too bad Kenneth Quek, our Festival Director was not able to make it for the photo-op. He was also with us throughout the conceptualization of this little booklet that we are holding in our hands. Ken also did the amazing layout of the book and the posters and last-minute edits and changes that needed to be made. The annotations found inside the booklet were done by the National Library Board.

With all the authors too, this time around.

To know more about Project Splash! Asia, click here to be taken to the AFCC Official Site.

Here are some of the PaperTigers posts about Project Splash! Asia:

2013 Asian Festival of Children’s Content Project Splash Asia!

WaterBridge Outreach, Water in Multicultural Children’s Books and Project Splash Asia!

2013 is the International Year of Water

Project Splash! Asia to be unveiled next month at the Asian Festival of Children’s Content in Singapore!

Part 2 ~ Project Splash! Asia to be unveiled next month at the Asian Festival of Children’s Content in Singapore!

Not to be missed book launches at the Asian Festival of Children’s Content ~ May 25 – 30th, Singapore

We are also inviting everyone to share their favorite water-themed stories from and about Asia in the Comments Section of this post. PaperTigers will also be doing a similar call and shout-out. We will continually update our list and we look forward to gathering more titles connected to Project Splash! Asia.