The Enchanting World of Ukrainian-English Children’s Literature
They always say that the best way to learn a new language is to read children’s books. The simple sentences and deliberate avoidance of complicated words make them the ideal vehicle for an adult to grow vocabulary and learn sentence structure.
Armed with this advice, my own attempts to learn some Ukrainian in evening classes at the University of Edinburgh over the last year brought me into contact with the colorful world of bilingual Ukrainian-English children’s books.
There is a variety of books on offer, all of which follow a similar format of a few English and Ukrainian sentences juxtaposed with an illustration. You can find them on Amazon and other on-line sales sites and most of them are self-published. I’ll come back to that fact in a bit.
There is the delightful little book Fly Little Bird, by Ingo Blum. Her slightly stranger Save the World! It is the only planet with chocolate! Has a colouring section at the back. Elisavet Arolaki’s books, including Summer with Grandpa are a good way to pick up words related to family and outdoor activities. Shelli Admont has put out some easy-to-read books. I Love to Eat Fruits and Vegetables and I Love Winter. They’ll teach you everyday words with fun and captivating images.
Wonderful plasticine creatures inhabit Olena Kalishuk’s A New Home for Leo, and the ethereal animals of Antonina Novarese’s Sister Goat are as original as they are strangely eerie. Animals feature strongly in many of the books on offer and Chatty Parrot’s book Who Lives in the Wood? Will teach a wide variety of animal names and characteristics.
The problem with children’s books is that they strengthen your vocabulary in some unconventional directions. After working my way through 50 Ukrainian Spooky Short Stories, I now find it easier to ask, “Is there a supernatural ghostly entity from another dimension in this grocery store?” than “Are there any melons in this grocery store?” But hopefully with continued effort, my skewed word knowledge will correct itself.
About five months into reading these books, I got the Ukrainian-English book bug myself. Fifteen years ago, I considered attempting to publish a children’s book, but as publishing children’s books is intensely competitive, I didn’t really pursue it, and the manuscript sat on my laptop all those years.
Now, however, with some Ukrainian language in hand, a knowledge of science, and the long-lost manuscript, it seemed that here was a niche in which I could do something useful.
Although my Ukrainian is probably not much better than a six-year-old (and even that may be optimistic), I realized it was good enough to write children’s books with some extra translation help from others.
Hence was born The Adventures of Taras, a Ukrainian-English speaking explorer mouse who travels the Universe. Taras is a mouse who sets out on exciting adventures to remarkable places on Earth, and even other planets, learning things along the way and bringing the excitement of science and exploration to children.
How could I bring Taras to life? Powering the expansion of bilingual children’s books around the world is the ability to self-publish. Before the internet, it would have been virtually impossible for someone to arbitrarily decide to write a Ukrainian-English children’s book.
Not only is the market for children’s books competitive, but writing books that are bilingual takes you into another layer of niche audience that few publishers with an eye on their profits would consider. Through Amazon and self-publishing sites, all that has changed and you can reach out directly to parents and children seeking these books.
Another remarkable aspect of the internet is the ability to collaborate with someone who can design and make illustrations. For my book, I wanted a Ukrainian illustrator to make that link with Ukraine stronger. I have no idea how I would have approached this problem a few decades ago. Perhaps I would have made a telephone call to a children’s illustration society in the UK and asked if they knew any Ukrainians.
Today, one can browse websites with portfolios of accomplished children’s book illustrators, including Ukrainian artists. This way, I was able to decide which style best fitted my idea of Taras.
That brought me into contact with Yuliia Zolotova, a Lviv-born illustrator whose depictions of animals and children I thought were delightful and matched the style I had in mind. Within a few days we had discussed my ideas, arranged and signed a contract, and away we went.
Culturally, we all appreciate the awful things that the internet can spew forth into the world. However, in the little appreciated area of bilingual language books for children, its ability to get this literature out to people and forge the links between writers and illustrators makes the World Wide Web extraordinarily powerful and effective.
Not least, it is a successful way to encourage the efforts of bilingual children and to strengthen the vitality of Ukrainian language and culture among children who bridge the Ukrainian and English-speaking world.
Self-publishing makes modifications easy, and friends have suggested that once I have completed the book, I should translate it into other languages. At the moment, I want to concentrate on the Ukrainian version, but the potential is there to create bilingual versions in any language.
It must be said that this is not the domain of the wealthy. Unless you happen to write a book that is so successful that every child buys a hundred copies each, you are unlikely to be purchasing an up-market apartment in Kyiv on the proceeds.
I’ll be lucky if I ever get back the costs in production and illustration from my own book. But this is more about the fun, the fulfilment and the contribution to a cultural project. And it is immensely rewarding.
So where is Taras off to next? I want to try and get a grant or at least some financial support to write a series of books. His next stop will be the Vernadsky Research Station in Antarctica where Taras will learn about the creatures that live there and the extreme conditions.
After that, there are rainforests, the deep ocean, deserts and savannahs to explore, maybe the Moon, and perhaps even a long trip to a distant star. Perhaps Taras will build a mouse time machine and visit dinosaurs and see the Egyptian pyramids being built.
Bilingual children’s books are the foundations of a new generation who can reciprocally appreciate and respect each other’s cultures. Expanding the number of imaginative books in English or Ukrainian separately will always be beneficial, but at that interface where the two languages meet is the chance to build a world in which geographical boundaries dissolve.
The enchantment of children is a universal language and with a little effort we can bring up generations of young people who can communicate across all nations, in their languages and their way of thinking.
Charles Cockell is Professor of Astrobiology at the University of Edinburgh.
Source: Charles Cockell