Sharjah message Ahmed Mansour
Saturday, May 13, 2023 11:00 PM
The creative arena in the Arab world is witnessing a qualitative movement with regard to writing for children, and it has been noticed recently that a number of young writers have been born who want to excel in the world of writing stories for children, especially after the availability of great support from the cultural bodies entrusted with the publishing movement and the care of creators, as The Sharjah Reading Festival, in its 14th edition, allows these young authors who are taking their first steps in the world of writing for children to see the most prominent titles written by Arab writers with long experience in this field. In this report, these writers, visitors to Sharjah who wish to write for children, share the most important tips and instructions for writing distinctive stories.
The Egyptian writer Amal Farah, owner of Dar Shajarah and recipient of the UNESCO International Prize for Literature, believes that the most important thing that anyone who decides to enter the world of writing for children should realize is the necessity of continuous work on oneself, through the possession of knowledge, and knowledge from Farah’s point of view is not the great informational attainment, Adding a deep sense of what we read, and contemplation of the information we store, is what turns knowledge into real fuel for pure, immortal creativity.” Farah advises Arab youth who wish to write to children, so she tells them: “You are children of the universe, and the more you get to know the universe, the more you get to know yourselves And you created great children’s literature.
The Emirati writer who specializes in writing for children, Sheikha Maryam bint Saqr Al Qasimi, owner of Dar Aram, explained that the writer of children’s stories is like a doctor, and his work is based on long practice, and she pointed out that writing for children is a very big responsibility, and it is not an easy or easy matter as many believe, and she directed her advice to young people And the young women who are about to write for the child, saying: The child is the enemy of boredom, and he does not like guiding books, so the writer must be familiar with everything that is new and interesting to the child, and he must set his sights on an important matter, which is to encourage children to read by using imagination and putting himself in the place of the child He composes it.
In the same context, the poet, writer and academic Al-Dawy Muhammad Al-Dawy, winner of the first place in the Sharjah Award for Arab Creativity for his play for children, “The Secret of the Disappearing Sun”, shared some important tips for writing for children and adolescents, including that the young writer should read more than what is written in this literary genre, to understand its writing techniques. In an applied way, and the importance of the writer reading about the different stages of childhood, and the characteristics of each stage, in order to know the appropriate literary and linguistic techniques, and this he can find in books on developmental psychology, educational sciences, and books on theorizing children’s literature.
As for the Syrian plastic artist, writer and illustrator of children’s stories, Fawaz Salameh, he believes that the most important element that new writers should focus on for children is having a strong pictorial imagination, because writing for children depends on the image as much as it depends on the word, and the more the writer has a great imagination, the stronger, influential and attractive his text is. Writers should not deal with the Arabic language rigidly while they are writing for children, but rather they should adapt it to fulfill its artistic purposes, and be able to harmonize the written text with the visual text, and when this harmony occurs, the story will be successful.
