Miriam Bamhare (Zimbabwe Book Development Council)

1. Perceptions of picture books in Zimbabwe

The majority of Zimbabweans express no opinions about picture books. Picture books never featured during the childhood of most parents and today's children have very little or no experience of the same. As such the consumption of picture books, be they local or imports, is confined to a minority middle class.

However, the Zimbabwe International Book Fair and seven years of National Reading Week celebrations have conscentised a greater number of citizens about need to develop children's literacy skills. The awareness about the children's books genre is also a recent development that continues to grow. Parents of young children who themselves never owned a book as children and as adults are keen that their children should be voluntary readers.

The ability to nature reading skills and habits eludes most parents, teachers, librarians and other child care givers. This deficiency on the part of adults results in most cases in the underutilization of the available picture books though few and the range poor.

In Zimbabwe there still exist this false notion that when children grow up they do not need picture books. Adults should enjoy picture books if they are to excite children of all ages.

Many parents worry when their nursery school children are not able to read words appearing to spend most of their schooling time reading pictures. There is little appreciation of reading readiness skills of which picture literacy is very important. Picture books teach all the skills about readers ie. detail, anticipation and inference skills with zero chance for failure.

Because picture books are used for a shorter time, parents who buy books often see them as a waste of money. Parents will not buy a picture book but a grade 7 textbook that will help the child pass an exam.

2. Publishing of picture books in Zimbabwe

A tiny minority of book professional trained abroad appreciate and value picture books. There are two or three picture book authors who have been forced by economic realities to confine themselves to text book picture books. Although nothing is wrong in producing textbooks, they tend to be only dry facts that do not inspire a reading habit.

We still experience teething problems of a book industry that is not used to color. The denser the text the better the book. Teachers and parents have been brought up in the tradition of grinding through chunks of text and publishers are hesitant to break new ground as they appear not to know any better themselves.

Zimbabwe publishers will at anytime tell you that 'picture books are not our field yet'. They are said to be too expensive to produce making the unit price prohibitive for a resistant market. The effort there is may be full-colour picture books put on bad paper with shoddy artwork and lack of appreciation of design. There is need for a lot of training in writing and design of picture books.

Zimbabwe children who consume picture books are in the main consuming imported culture. One publisher with the assistance of sponsored publishing experimented with translations into local African languages. The books were sold out but no reprints were made. This is an example of faceless publishing that is all out to rake profits without social responsibility.

3. Some solutions to the problems

Because picture books are a middle class thing, it makes the issue of libraries more critical for 70% of preschool children deemed below the poverty datum line. They can never dream of owning a picture book but access to libraries facilitates group sharing.

The Book Council concept of Reading Tents is a wonderful substitute for expensive infrastructure of brick and mortar.

Regionalism is yet another solution in SADC, With a situation of no customs barriers, no taxes and an open bigger market, it makes better business sense. Promoting picture books for reading regionally is cost effective.

The librarian at Gateway High School in Harare has a flourishing project in which picture books are made by older children.

The National Reading Week organized annually by the Book Council of Zimbabwe is celebrating reading in 2001 under the theme of "Catch them young - The Born to read generation". The purpose is to conscentise parents about the necessity of a rich reading environment during post natal care, a very new concept in our society. The targeting of babies born during the reading week 18-24 March with reading gifts has drawn the attention of a lot of people to the reading campaign. All parents want the best for their little ones. Such campaigns succeed in shifting attitudes.

The oral culture of Zimbabwe in the form of story telling is grossly underutilized. Picture books or no picture books, orality can be used as the source for writing and reading for children and by children themselves.