Children's Books on Complicated Feelings for Family Reading

ended

Now Ukrainian readers everywhere, young and adult alike, need support and healing. Many Ukrainian families deal with complicated feelings through displacement and separation from friends and family. Books, especially family reading, can become a valuable instrument for dealing with such emotions. We propose a portfolio of five children’s books that are not about the war but instead deal with things the war deepens and intensifies: loneliness, loss, misunderstanding, guilt, anger, difficult choices, sacrifice, etc. At the same time, the books are from the European literatures underrepresented in the Ukrainian book market, so that is the chance to enrich it with new titles from lesser-known cultures. To achieve these goals, we established these objectives: • to translate in Ukrainian, publish and distribute five children’s books from lesser-known European literatures; • to create with the help of professional psychologists five corresponding guides for family reading; • to conduct a promotion campaign for the books that would encourage family reading. Our project's primary activities are: • translating, publishing, and distributing the books; • creating a guide for each book that can help adults use family reading to discuss complicated feelings with their children; • creating a series of videos promoting the project and family reading; • conducting events (public readings, flash mobs, presentations) to promote the project and family reading. The project has one beneficiary: Crocus Publishing LTD, a small publishing company in Kharkiv, Ukraine, co-founded in 2019 by two female publishing experts with years of previous experience in the field. In the course of the project, these outputs will be produced: • printed and digital books translated from Swedish, Dutch, Icelandic, and Norwegian (5 in each form); • guides on a family reading of the titles (5); • videos for a promotion campaign (5); • online book presentations (5).