Die Bücherpiraten (book pirates) fill children with enthusiam for books.
We are a charitable organization and have set ourselves the goal of enabling children and young people to experience literature creatively and independently. Our projects are aimed at children and young people between the ages of 3 and 19. Literature festivals, reading, writing and acting groups: our children’s literature center in the old town of Lübeck, Germany, is home to all. Our Story-Seeker project has spread to hundreds of different preschool nurseries.
The association is solely financed through private donations. If you would like to donate, you can do so here.
If you would like to find out more, simply visit our website at www.buecherpiraten.de or pay us a visit in the children’s literature center.
About the project
Promoters of reading all over the world agree: A child’s first contact with a book should always be in its native language. Demand for bilingual books is enormous, but unfortunately there are very few available.
The aim of the project is to create a database for bilingual picture book stories written by children, for children. Promoters of reading from all over the world can upload their children’s stories. A network of volunteers can translate the stories into 1001 languages. As many versions as possible are also recorded as audio books.
Families and promoters of reading from all over the world can then download stories in any two languages at www.bilingual-picturebooks.org.
To kick off the project, Bücherpiraten organized a picture book workshop in 2013 with the help of the Dräger Foundation. Assisted by picture book artists Kirsten Boie, Martin Gries and Birte Müller, ten children were given the chance to work on their own picture book for a whole week: “Chocolate Cake in Hawaii“. Bücherpiraten’s priority was to ensure that the ideas, text and illustrations come from children. The adults were merely there for advice and support.
After the workshop, the book was translated by professional translators into six base languages: Arabic, English, French, Mandarin, Russian and Spanish. Using the seven language versions of “Chocolate Cake in Hawaii” as a basis, volunteer native speakers translate the story into as many languages as possible. All translations are reviewed by a second native speaker before they are published on www.bilingual-picturebooks.org.
This project is supported by:
Margot und Jürgen Wessel-Stiftung, Possehl-Stiftung, Stiftung Jugendmarke
A few words from project ambassador Kirsten Boie
Today, people from many different countries live in Germany and in other places. Everywhere you go, the number of bilingual families is growing. Parents who speak Syrian Arabic, Twi or Farsi have children who understand German (or Swedish, French or Danish) fluently after just a few weeks in kindergarten or a few months in school.
With the bilingual picture books from bilingual-picturebooks.org, parents and children can enjoy a story together. Bilingual picture books can also be helpful when working with refugee children in schools, kindergartens and refugee shelters, or for all of us when learning a foreign language. Because it is possible to combine the languages in an unlimited number of ways, even the most unusual combinations are possible. They can also be mixed together in countries with more than one language, such as nearly all sub-Saharan countries in Africa as well as many countries in Asia. bilingual-picturebooks.org aims to become a project for the whole world.
What is more, bilingual picturebooks offers every group of children in every country the opportunity to write and illustrate its own picture book – for other children around the world. I am certain that many parents, kindergartens and schools are looking forward to reading stories by children from Arab, African, Asian and other European countries. Just think of all the great new possibilities!
May the project find many enthusiastic users!
Julia Donaldson, author of the Gruffalo books, says:
“What an exciting and worthwhile project, one which enables children to read – and write – stories in their mother tongue. I love the idea of these stories travelling around the world.”
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