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

How diverse is the children’s book industry? Who are the players in the field? How do the publishing houses work both in Germany and aboard to push on equal participation in the book branch for everyone, so that all the children and their families can find books to identify with? In the context of the Frankfurter Buchmesse the project “DRIN – Visions for Children’s Books” organizes a panel discussion relating the topic.

Welcome to the DRIN book club to discuss diverse children’s literature! Guests this time: the author Sope Martins and the illustrator Abdulkareem Baba Aminu present the books Teju's Shadow and The Greatest Animal in the Jungle by Sope Martins, and There's an Elephant in My Wardrobe and Juba And The Fireball by Yejide Kilanko. 

In collaboration with the German Academy for children and youth literature the project DRIN co-hosts Friday evening reading sessions. Via Zoom a variety of authors will be reading their stories and converse with the audience. 

Kolibrí, an art festival for children in the Metropolitan area, organizes a multilingual storytelling afternoon for listeners from 4 years of age. Stories will be read in German, Somali, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and French. The event also focuses on diverse children’s books from Europe since these books – with regard to authorship, characters and plots – are still far from being as diverse as the children speaking those languages and the societies they grow up in.

Storyteller Simone Schümmelfeder introduces new children’s books written in German as well as books from Ireland and discusses them with children. The young audience is invited to share their ideas of diversity in books.

Welcome to the DRIN book club to discuss diverse children’s literature! The fifth book club is with the researcher Aminkeng A. Alemanji, the topic is Alemanji´s study regarding the children's book "Bibi muuttaa Suomeen" (Bibi moves to Finland) by Katja Kallio and Maggie Lindholm and with Mona Eid who gives a book tip for educators and impressions from her podcast "Kaikkien koulu?"

The current tendencies and positions regarding the diversity in children's literature will be discussed in the form of presentations and lectures. 

Diversity in German children's literature is an important topic especially from the perspective of representation and different perspectives. That is why this event series concentrates on the potential of BIPOC writers. 

Welcome to the DRIN bookclub! This fourth book club will be joined by Jolana Pons and Vera Göckelmann from "Sei kein Hasenfuß e.V.". Join us in the discussion!

How to approach character building with focus on non-binary figures. How do you draw someone outside the gender binary? What are the things to consider? How can we empower each other through drawing? EL BOUM and Warda Ahmed host a workshop in Gothenburg/ Sweden.

Children’s books are becoming more and more diverse, reflecting the reality in a diverse society. Still, the writers of those books are still rarely as diverse as the society itself, authors of Color, with experiences of racism, migration and/or flight, are strongly underrepresented on the children’s book market. Thus, this workshop aims at empowering BIPOC that are interested in or are already writing books for children.

At the event in Oodi, the participants discuss about their experiences with a writing workshop: What kind of stories have they worked on in the workshop? What is special about writing for (BIPOC ) children? What is it like to work as a BIPOC writer in Finland? What kind of a world would we like to write for children? What are the utopias and dreams of the participants and instructors?

Who writes the children's books that we find in bookshops and libraries? The participants to the discussion bring their own view of children's book and represent different positions on the topic. 

Welcome to the DRIN book club to discuss diverse children’s literature! The third book club will be with the editor Arina Stoenescu based in Sweden and Gabriele Koné from ista – Institut für den Situationsansatz, Berlin. Welcome to join!

Panel discussion during the conference for "Rasism sensitive Education and Teaching in Schools and Universities". Chantal-Fleur Sandjon from the DRIN-project takes part.

Welcome to the DRIN book club to discuss diverse children’s literature! This time with the illustrator Warda Ahmed and Gabriele Koné (ista – Institut für den Situationsansatz). For everyone reading, making and using children's books!

The intercultural and anti-racist platform #StopHatredNow takes place virtually in May. The event creates new discourse on diversity, inclusivity, power structures and intersectionally feminist strategies. This year’s theme is Reshaping Horizons of Hope.

A webinar in the context of the DRIN-project by the Goethe-Institut Sri Lanka, in collaboration with the Sri Lankan Ministry of Education, the SLBbY, Read Plus Foundation, Room to Read and the National Institute of Library and Information Sciences (NILIS), University of Colombo.

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 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.