How many children's books are printed annually? Just one or two titles which remain largely unsold. These few books are of good quality and interesting titles, but there is little effort to promote sales. Recently I bumped into Fehmida Riaz, poet and story writer, whose current interest is in Sufism. I told her I liked the book she wrote for children titled 'Our Sheikh Sa'di' in English, attractively produced by Oxford University Press (OUP), which I had purchased to send it to my grand nephew in America. She said she wrote four books (small booklets, actually) for children on famous Sufis. But I did not see the other three in the OUP bookshop. Had they been on sale I would have bought the set. Its the same case at other publishing houses: books are produced but the marketing side is weak or ignored. In most cases it is the author who runs about selling copies of his or her book, which is rather pitiful.
Publishing houses print children's books as a sort of social service rather than a business venture. There is now a trend for annual book awards for both non-fiction and fiction authored by Pakistanis living in the country or abroad. There is however, no annual award for best children's books. Publishers blame authors for not writing books for children. Authors blame parents and school teachers for not developing the reading habit in children. Parents blame the children who prefer to play with their cell phones or watch cartoons on TV. This is merely passing the buck. In fact, everyone has a share in the blame for ignoring the importance of locally produced books for children.
Visit any bookshop, book bazaar, book festival, annual book sales, even the pushcarts on which old and new books are piled. There are children browsing through books. What they pick up are children's books published in English in the UK, USA, Canada and Australia. Where is the local participation?
It seems as if writing for children does not matter to contemporary literary pundits (with rare exceptions, of course). In the past, literary giants like Ghalib and Iqbal wrote poetry for children. Ismail Merthi devoted his talent exclusively to write for kids, the Adventures of Amir Hamza and his sidekick Umar Ayar were stories written for adults, though some anecdotes became children's stories, Mir Amman Dehlavi's 'Bagh-o-Bahar' is a storybook which inspired 19th century children's stories penned by English authors, such as 'Gulliver's Travels.' And, of course, 'AlifLaila' from which 'Alladin and the 40 Thieves' is internationally espoused. 'AlifLaila' is originally Arabic literature, made popular locally be Urdu authors.
Children's books lay the foundation of social and cultural attitudes. If a child just does not know his or her country beyond the textbook's mundane information called Social Studies, how do you expect him to love this land or be proud of being Pakistani? My niece in America does her best to inculcate love of Pakistan in her son. When the boy is here I tell him stories to which he listens with wide eyes and rapt attention. They are trivial tales, such as Alexander the Great's legendary horse Bucephalus who died in the battle against Raja Porus in the Punjab; about K-2 the mountain every mountaineer in the world wants to climb and why such a climb is rated more desirable than climbing to the summit of Mount Everest; or the legend of Saraswati the lost river of Sindh; local falconry and polo, and the childhood adventures of his favouritemamoo. And I hunt for children's books of local provenance.
In short, we have to make a great effort to take literature to the level of children. The Ghalib Library, Arts Council, AnjumanTaraqqi-i-Urdu, Pakistan Academy of letters have made virtually no contribution to generate or promote literature for children. They are like frogs in the well: 'kooenkemainduk', croaking highly pompous bombastic speeches to receive the applause of other frogs in the well.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2017