Blog posts

Book design is crucial for readability, especially for beginning readers. Elements like fonts and how the words on the page are spaced are important for making books clear, useable, and appealing for readers. Good design and file set-up also makes it easier to print books and archive or store them for future print runs. But too often, children’s book designers in many countries do not have the opportunities to harness global best practices, resulting in books with lower-quality visual design or which are challenging to print.

What really struck me when attending the recent AfLIA-run World Read Aloud Day webinar was this profound quote our host, Dr Nkem Osuigwe, included in her presentation:                 
 

Africa got here first!                 
In Africa, stories were and still continue to be passed down from generation to generation. Oral storytelling is our natural way of ‘preserving human knowledge, insight, and creativity’.

International Literacy Day has been celebrated annually since 1966. This year’s theme is ‘Transforming Literacy Learning Spaces… an opportunity to rethink the fundamental importance of literacy learning spaces to build resilience and ensure quality, equitable and inclusive education for all'.

Rather than focus on a single day in September, we asked some of the people and organizations that do critical work in the early literacy field to answer three important questions related to the theme and how they plan to sustain the good work they are doing over time.

International Literacy Day has been celebrated annually since 1966. This year’s theme is ‘Transforming Literacy Learning Spaces… an opportunity to rethink the fundamental importance of literacy learning spaces to build resilience and ensure quality, equitable and inclusive education for all'.

Rather than focus on a single day in September, we asked some of the people and organizations that do critical work in the early literacy field to answer three important questions related to the theme and how they plan to sustain the good work they are doing over time.

International Literacy Day has been celebrated annually since 1966. This year’s theme is ‘Transforming Literacy Learning Spaces… an opportunity to rethink the fundamental importance of literacy learning spaces to build resilience and ensure quality, equitable and inclusive education for all'.

Rather than focus on a single day in September, we asked some of the people and organizations that do critical work in the early literacy field to answer three important questions related to the theme and how they plan to sustain the good work they are doing over time.

The founder and managing director of Sub-Saharan Publishers, Akoss Ofori-Mensah is a force to be reckoned with in the publishing industry. As part of our ‘in conversation with’ series, we chat to Akoss from her home in Accra, Ghana, about the current state of publishing in Africa, the importance of sharing African stories with the rest of the world, the impact of COVID-19 on the industry, and, in her opinion, how much African creatives have lost with the diminution of the Zimbabwe International Book Fair. (ZIBF)

In April 2021, African Library & Information Associations & Institutions (AfLIA) and NBA agreed to work together to develop a course on early literacy development, specifically for librarians and library staff in Africa. In July 2022, the first batch of certificates was issued to the librarians who completed the course pilot!