School for Special Education in Abbottabad.
The second prize was bagged by Zarina Fazal of the Imran Rehabilitation Centre in Karachi. The next two awards were secured by Yasmeen Muhammad and Saima Shafiq. Saima received her award from Khuhro.
The CLF’s concluding day, like the previous day, was marked by almost 30 sessions being held simultaneously.
One of these was titled ‘Is there a dearth of children’s literature in Pakistan?’ The panel had as its members noted authors of children’s books: Rumana Husain, Amra Alam, Fauzia Minallah as well as Dr Arfa Syeda Zehra, history professor at the Forman Christian College University in Lahore. The session was moderated by Musharraf Ali Farooqi.
Fauzia complained that there were no books for children in regional languages which, she thought, was a must to win children over to the habit of reading.
All the panellists were of the view that one of the main reasons for lack of interest in reading among children was because the books were not adequately illustrated or designed.
Amra related a certain incident in London where, she said, they sold 9,992 copies of a children’s book.
The following year, she said, the sales had dropped to 8,000.
She said a thorough research was carried out and it turned out that the design of the book was not attractive enough. When they redesigned the book, the sales crossed the 10,000 mark the following year, she added.
Rumana lamented that there was a dearth of
children’s authors in the country. She was of the view that we should bring the finer things of the world into the storybooks, like trees, flowers, colourful birds and nature.
Dr Arfa, in her characteristically frank and sometimes hard-hitting tone, said that what was most objectionable was the hate and militancy material that our children’s books, including primers, were concentrating on.
She said that today primers, while teaching alphabets, had “T for tank”, “G for grenade” and “M for missile”.
All this would do is cultivate an attitude of militancy in the child, she added and vehemently decried the trend.