It's a long, long road

It is ten years since I first started working on projects aimed at helping children's books to better reflect the needs of disabled children. A decade on, and the road towards achieving a more equitable proportion of inclusive and accessible books still feels almost as long and pothole-plagued as it did back then.

Admittedly, the work of several key initiatives (such as Scope's In the Picture project, Booktrust's Bookmark site and our Equal Measures seminars) have had considerable impact, but there is still a long way to go.

Particularly in these times of financial austerity and uncertainty, exploring ways of making 'mainstream' books appropriate for children with specific and sometimes multiple and complex needs can be perceived as something simply far too prohibitive to be even considered by most publishers.  Indeed, even persuading the book world to include the occasional positive image of a disabled child can sometimes feel like an uphill struggle, given the current demands and pressures on the book industry.

I was therefore thrilled last month when the crusade was given a considerable boost, thanks to an initiative from the Anna Lindh Foundation. Their 'Arab Children Literature and Reading Regional Programme' was set up with the mission of fostering children's developments in the Arab region by promoting the reading of Arabic children's books. Its organisers wanted to ensure a disability-related strand of work in the project, to support publishers across North Africa and the Middle East in addressing the need for more inclusive and accessible books. To this end, they approached me through Booktrust to ask me to fly to Amman, Jordan to run a three-day training programme for representatives from across the region. The mere invitation itself was heartening enough, but the five days I spent in Jordan proved to be an exceptionally rewarding and hope-inspiring experience. 

Not only did a respectable number of highly successful and busy publishers from the likes of Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Palestine give up three days of their time to develop their knowledge in this field and discuss ways of meeting the need, but they were also joined by a number of writers, organisations and individuals with specialist knowledge, endowing the room with a wealth of precious knowledge and experience. 

In the lead-up to the trip, I'd wondered anxiously how the workshop's potential success might be affected by the things like the language barrier, political/religious/cultural issues and the range of potentially very different attitudes to disability. However, I need not have worried. For starters, I had an amazing co-trainer in the form of Mayda Freije Makdissa, a storyteller, writer, illustrator, graphic designer and all-round miracle-worker from Beirut. Her input over the course of the training programme was invaluable. 

Second, the interpreters proved to be exceptionally good (and boy did they need to be, especially when I insisted on impromptu readings from unfamiliar picture books, challenging them to translate terms like 'grotty googlies' and 'three cross crocodiles in a dig-dig-digger' at the drop of a hat). 

Third, and most importantly of all, the participants and I soon found that while language, terminology, experience and backgrounds might vary, we were all united in a very genuine interest in making children's books as good - and as 'real' - as they possibly can be.

What was particularly promising about the discussions was the fact that the delegates and I together identified quite so many ways of improving children's books for children with additional needs. Be it including regular images of disabled children, improving the readability of a book or considering simple and effective promotional resources which enable more disabled children to enjoy it, there are so many ways we can all have a real impact, often at no extra cost whatsoever. These ideas and recommendations, universal to the global children's book world, were of course collated, and Mayda, the Anna Lindh Foundation and I look forward to now finding ways of sharing with others and building on the success of the project.

The enthusiasm with which everyone leapt upon this subject gives me a fresh sense of hope that, across the globe, children's books really can start to better reflect disabled children's needs. 

Now, how to replicate this amazing project across the rest of the world...