DIVERSITY, REPRESENTATION, INCLUSION, NORM CRITIQUE
DRIN - Visions for children´s books

What kind of books do we need so that all children feel included in the stories? We invite all new and existing children’s authors, illustrators and publishers as well as everyone working with children’s literature to attend our webinar.

Welcome to the DRIN book club to discuss diverse children’s literature! In each meeting there will be 2-3 book introductions followed by discussion and exchange of thoughts and ideas. Everyone is welcome to the book club: parents, teachers, kindergarten teachers, librarians as well as everyone else working with or using children’s books.

Wie lassen sich alternative, unterrepräsentierte Narrative von Stimmen und Bildern auf dem Buchmarkt einführen? Verschiedene Illustratorinnen beleuchten das Thema aus ihren eigenen Perspektiven und berichten über die Situation in Finnland. Ebenso öffnen sie das Thema mit illustratorischen Beispielen und mit Hilfe von Bild-Analysen.

A webinar on children's literature, diversity and representation with perspectives from Germany, the United Kingdom and Sweden.

A webinar that aims to share insights into the field of children’s literature: how to get access into the publishing world, how to find colleagues/ partners who are interested in the same topics to work on together? - Participation via open call-application only.

The journalist Fridtjof Küchemann (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung), the illustrator El Boum (Jasmina El Bouamraoui), the author and diversity trainer Chantal-Fleur Sandjon and the Finnish comic artist, teacher and activist Warda Ahmed discussed diversity within children’s literature.

Workshop in der Stadtbibliothek Turku im Stadtteil Varissuo, organisiert vom Goethe-Institut zusammen mit dem ”Children’s library project” der Åbo Akademi und Lukukeskus (Finnish Reading Centre).

Our project DRIN focusses on you, the children, and on the books you are reading. It focuses on your heroes and heroines, your fantasy worlds and on the the fact, that everyone of you finds themselves in the books. 
There is no better way to create more favourite books than to ask you directly what kinds of books you would like to read. This is why we ask you:
- What annoys you in the books you have read so far?
- Which kind of book would you like to read, but have not found yet? 
For children up to class 4: Send us your ideas by 28. February to bibliothek-helsinki@goethe.de. Every idea has the chance to win a book.

Two five-day workshops for children's book illustrators and authors, facilitated by Baba Aminu Abdulkareem and Ute Krause, took place in Nigeria in March 2019 and March 2020. The workshops' aim was: to develop affordable children's books for the Nigerian market, which tell imaginative, yet realistic, stories that reflect the country's social and cultural environment.

Examples of children's books from the library of the Goethe-Institut.

The German Academy for Childrens' and Youth Literature has composed a list of books to offer impulses towards an integrative (reading) culture. The list collects a representative selection of books about children/ people of color.

With the online magazine “Latitude”, the Goethe-Institut provides a platform for global discourse on colonial power relations, their consequences and how to overcome them. In interviews, essays and a range of other formats, the magazine highlights issues such as decolonisation, preservation of indigenous cultures, the role of museums, restitution and dealing with cultural heritage.
 

#StopHatredNow is an intercultural and anti-racist platform that strives to create discourse and offers tools to create a more inclusive, diverse and feminist art field. This list collects material that deals with diversity, racism and (post-)colonialism.

EL BOUM, Jasmina El Bouamraoui, is a German-Moroccan illustrator from Berlin. Her hand-drawn work has a fresh feel and invites the viewer to question clichés of all kinds.

The comic-artist, teacher and illustrator Warda Ahmed lives and works in the Helsinki metropolitan area. As an anti-racist feminist, she takes part in the public discourse on structures that make our societies more unequal. At the moment, she works in the project “Comics and migration” that is funded by Kone Foundation. In her comics, Ahmed deals with the migration history of her family. With the working group Sisaret 1918 (Sisters 1918) she won the Finlandia prize for comics in 2019.  

Chantal-Fleur Sandjon is a communication scientist, writer and editor. She has been working as a spoken-word artist, artistically accompanying post-colonial city walks, designing diversity workshops and working as an education officer at the Berlin Queer Education Unit.