Myra here.
Every Saturday we hope to share with you our thoughts on reading and books. We thought that it would be good practice to reflect on our reading lives and our thoughts about reading in general. While on occasion, we would feature a few books in keeping with this, there would be a few posts where we will just write about our thoughts on read-alouds, libraries, reading journals, upcoming literary conferences, books that we are excited about, and just book love miscellany in general.
Yesterday officially marked the end of this year’s Asian Festival of Children’s Content, even though there are still masterclasses that are ongoing today. Here are a few photographs that I managed to take over the past several days.
Fun With Words: Children’s Reading Choices
It was interesting to discover how Disney seemed alive and well for some of these young readers and quite heartening to see how a few are in love with fantasy, science fiction, comics, and even crime thrillers. A few are reading classics and bestselling novels by Dan Brown! 🙂
Keynote: Candy Gourlay
Candy Gourlay’s impassioned speech on Why Asia Needs More Writers for Children and Young People, and why #WeNeedDiverseBooks.
Book Launch – Forest of Stories
With local authors R. Chandran and Gelyn Ong – and quite a few published/aspiring authors who attended the first-ever AFCC Writers Retreat.
We are very pleased to share that this is our third themed annotated bibliography since 2013. This year we are celebrating Forest of Stories, tree-themed children’s stories from around the world. Beside me is Evelyn Wong who along with myself and the AFCC team helped compile and select the picture books that were included in this bibliography. We held the book launch at My Tree House in the Central Public Library.
Book Launch – Asia: Land Of Perennial Stories
This is my third edited book for the Asian Festival of Children’s Content.
The crowd during the book launch.
I am grateful to the many people who attended the book launch, and very thankful to Candy Gourlay who mentioned the book during her Keynote Speech – which might explain the crowd here.
Samsung Kidstime Authors Awards
I am very honoured to be the Chief Judge this year for the Samsung KidsTime Authors Award (SKTAA). There were 149 entries in all from the Philippines, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Myanmar. I worked with a panel of international judges from Malaysia, Vietnam, Myanmar, and Mam Neni Sta Romana Cruz from the Philippines. Very proud that there are two grand prizes from the Philippines: Russell Molina’s “Anong Gupit Natin Ngayon” and “Halo-Halo Espesyal” and eight merit/consolation prizes. These works will be turned into an ebook/mobile app via the Samsung Kidstime Platform and will be made available internationally. Congratulations to the winners!
Mam Neni Sta. Romana Cruz writes about the SKTAA in her Philippine Daily Inquirer Column today. Here is the online version you may wish to visit.
It was an elevating, inspiring time. Thank you for introducing me to some new tastes and for the amazing work you did on your new book. Glad we managed to have time together before the AFCC maelstrom sucked us in!
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This year;s AFCC was inspirational to me, Myra. I realise that I am an Asian with a white face. And I especially love trees. Thank you for all your hard work to make such events happen. (Heart-warming to see your daughter in action too!)
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