Baobab Books
Baobab Books is a Swiss association-sponsored book publisher based in Basel , also an association of the same name, a non-governmental specialist agency for the promotion of cultural diversity in children's and youth literature. Almost exclusively translations of books from the Third World and minority ethnic groups from Europe are published.
history
Baobab Books is named after the baobab tree . In its shadow, people tell stories and have passed legends on to the next generation for centuries. Baobab Books has its roots in the 1968 Bern Declaration (EvB). EvB employees found that many western children's and young people's books paint a one-sided picture of other countries and that there were hardly any children's books by foreign authors on the local market. A working group for children's and youth literature was then founded. In 1975, this working group compiled an initial list of recommendations, which has since been updated every two years. Since the late 1980s, the list of recommendations has been called "Fremde Welten" and is published by Baobab Books. It includes detailed descriptions of around 180 books for children and young people. The selection ranges from picture books, graphic novels and novels to teaching materials , audio books and DVDs . Selected titles are also discussed in the “Fremde Welten” online directory. The list of recommendations for teachers, schools, libraries, organizations and parents is compiled by 25 volunteer readers according to selected criteria.
In 1989 the former working group of the EvB was transferred to the specialist unit for children's book fund Baobab , now the EvB and terre des hommes Schweiz were joint sponsors of the new specialist unit. In 1990 the first book in the Baobab series was published. To date, this series has only published books by authors and illustrators from Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Middle East in German translation. Numerous books from the Baobab series have already been awarded prizes.
Since January 2011 Baobab Books has been organized as an independent and non-profit association . In addition to contributions from the public sector, Baobab Books is also dependent on donations from private individuals and sponsor members.
With projects at home and abroad, Baobab Books is also involved in the promotion of reading and literature, for example with further training offers, reading trips and workshops, specialist articles and free teaching materials for the books in the Baobab series. The publishing house is self-supporting, which means that expenses and income are balanced, the focus is on “quality instead of quantity”, ie not on profit maximization, but rather on quality optimization.
Since March 1, 2016, the publisher has been a member of the Association of Young Adult Publishers (avj).
Press review
General
“There are few opportunities to look over the edge of the page in the area of picture book illustration. Fortunately, every rule has its exception. For years, the children's book fund Baobab, in cooperation with Terre des Hommes Switzerland, has endeavored to give a face to the picture and youth stories that are painted and told outside of Europe and North America. "
About books
The Secret of Trees (2009)
“You almost don't want to report that this book was produced in exemplary fair trade , otherwise someone will think that he should buy it as a good deed. That would be a misunderstanding. Because this is art. She understands something about the world that is being cut down. "
“In The Secret of Trees , a tree is presented on every double page - an intermediate step between ordinary botany and divine instruction. In the pictures of Bhajju Shyam , Durga Bai and Ram Singh Urveti, there is something very philosophical about the questions of who we are, where we come from and where we are going. That seems like tough fare for kids. Ultimately, however, these are the questions that parents are bombarded with as soon as the first sentences gush out of a child's mouth. [...] The secret of the trees is not only valuable because it is used to transport the largely unknown treasure of the gondola to Europe. But also because with this book you are holding a piece of fairly produced, traditional Indian craftsmanship in your hands. The handmade black paper is reminiscent of thick construction paper ; on it, bright colors in fine lines, circles or points, which unite an animal with the tree as a total work of art. Not a book that is read briefly and then goes back to the shelf; rather a book to sit together, fantasize, smile. "
"In the pictures of these three Gond artists, a wonderful, artistic world full of stories opens up before our eyes."
Books in the Baobab series
- Mikie Ando: The moon is a guest
- Julío Emílio Braz: Children in the Dark
- Chih-Yuan Chen: Short Walk ; bilingual German - Chinese
- Mohieddin Ellabbad: The draftsman's notebook ; bilingual German - Arabic
- Rupa Gulab: A crosshead seldom comes alone
- Mücke Iplikçi: The Flying Tuesday
- John Kilaka: The wonderful tree
- John Kilaka: Good friends
- Tae-Jun Lee and Dong-Seong Kim: When is mom coming? ; bilingual German - Korean
- Henri Mbarga and Billy Djité: Why the pig has no horns
- Kagiso Lesego Molope: In the shade of the lemon tree
- Ondjaki : Bom dia camaradas
- Ámbar Past, Maruch Mendes Peres and Tamana Araki: When the sun was a child
- Marcelo Pimentel: A story without end - nomination for the German Youth Literature Prize 2016
- Jenny Robson: Tommy Mütze - nomination for the German Youth Literature Prize 2013
- Bhajju Shyam , Durga Bai and Ram Singh Urveti: The Secret of the Trees
- Keizaburō Tejima / Shitaku Yae: The wise rabbit Isopo
- Seyyed Ali Shodjaie (text) / Elahe Taherian (illustration): The great snowman ; bilingual German-Persian
- Eymard Toledo : Bené, faster than the fastest chicken. A story from Brazil - Prize of the Book Art Foundation 2014
Web links
- Web presence of the publisher
- Website Foreign Worlds
- Publisher portrait in the NZZ (PDF; 3.8 MB)
- Mondomedia
swell
- ↑ Membership and Donations . Baobab Books. Retrieved January 16, 2019.
- ↑ Baobab Books - Children's and Young People's Book Variety , Deutschlandfunk Kultur, published and accessed February 5, 2019
- ↑ Baobab is the 95th member publisher of avj , Boersenblatt dated March 1, 2016, accessed February 5, 2019
- ↑ Distant worlds. In: nzz.ch. September 18, 2001, accessed October 14, 2018 .
- ^ Elisabeth von Thadden: Children's and young people's book: rooted in the sense . In: The time . No. 47/2009 ( online ).
- ↑ http://www.badische-zeitung.de/literatur-1/philosophie-der-baeume--7467740.html
- ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original from January 10, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
