Book Dash
| This article is about Children's literature, Reading and |
| Social Impact Publishing |
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Book Dash is a social impact publisher (SIP) which works with volunteer creatives to produce open access children's picture books.[1] Their aim is to create and publish high-quality picture books with storylines and illustrations that represent South African children's lived experiences, and make these open-access books available in vernacular languages, in print and on digital platforms.[2]
Background
[edit]Book hunger is a pervasive problem worldwide.[3] In South Africa, a national reading survey indicated that 63% of South African households did not have any fiction or nonfiction books, and 65% of homes with children under 10 did not have any picture books.[4] In many schools, reading is seen as "oratorical" [5] and taught as an oral performance, with little emphasis on comprehending written text.[6][7] By Grade 4, according to the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study, four in five South African children cannot read for meaning in any language.[8]
Organization
[edit]Book Dash is a non-profit organization, founded in 2014, that seeks to address the absence of picture books in homes.[9][10] They envision every child owning 100 books before age five.[10] Unlike the commercial publishing industry, where books take a long time to produce and are expensive, Book Dash uses volunteers to produce openly published books quickly.[11]
The book creation model that Book Dash follows has similarities to the Booksprints model, where a group of experts take a few days to design, edit and illustrate a book.[12] At each Book Dash event, ~10 children's books are created over a 12-hour period.[13] The storybooks are published under a Creative Commons (CC BY 4.0) License, allowing others to download, re-use and adapt these children's books and translate them.[11] The books are printed and given away for free.[14] In its first decade, Book Dash created more than 200 titles and gave away more than 4 million books.[15]
In 2024, Book Dash was recognized as "Platform of the Year" by Brittle Paper.[14] It was named a Library of Congress 2020 Best Practice Honoree[16] and has been shortlisted for the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award.[17]
References
[edit]- ^ "Book Dash | New, African storybooks by volunteer creatives". Book Dash. Retrieved 2025-01-30.
- ^ Nixon, Gwendolyn C.; Naidoo, Jamie Campbell; Yates, Steven (2024). "The UN's 2030 Sustainable Development Goals: Cultivating Programs and Partnerships to Change the World". Children and Libraries. 22 (4): 11–16. doi:10.5860/cal.22.4.11. ISSN 1542-9806.
- ^ "Home". Ending Book Hunger. Retrieved 2025-03-14.
- ^ "Survey | National Reading Barometer South Africa". www.readingbarometersa.org. Retrieved 2025-03-14.
- ^ Rule, Peter; Land, Sandra (2017-09-07). "Finding the plot in South African reading education". Reading & Writing. 8 (1): 8. doi:10.4102/rw.v8i1.121. ISSN 2308-1422.
- ^ Rule, Peter (2017-12-08). "South Africa has a reading crisis: why, and what can be done about it". The Conversation. Retrieved 2025-03-14.
- ^ Fleisch, Brahm (2023-08-10). "Theory of Change and Theory of Education: Pedagogic and Curriculum Defects in Early Grade Reading Interventions in South Africa". Education as Change. 27. doi:10.25159/1947-9417/13316. ISSN 1947-9417.
- ^ Department of Basic Education (2023). "Progress in International Reading Literacy Study 2021: South African Preliminary Highlights Report" (PDF). University of Pretoria. Retrieved 2025-05-27.
- ^ Metelerkamp, Tamsin (2024-05-31). "Success stories: How Book Dash is getting SA children reading". Daily Maverick. Retrieved 2024-09-30.
- ^ a b "Book Dash". hundred.org. 2019-04-30. Retrieved 2024-09-30.
- ^ a b Bookdash (17 September 2024). "Story time: Book Dash shares five new books to get kids reading".
- ^ "Home". Book Sprints. Retrieved 2025-01-30.
- ^ Metelerkamp, Tamsin (2024-05-31). "Success stories: How Book Dash is getting SA children reading". Daily Maverick. Retrieved 2025-01-30.
- ^ a b "Book Dash Is Putting Millions of Books in the Hands of South African Children". Brittle Paper. 2024-12-18. Retrieved 2025-04-14.
- ^ Metelerkamp, Tamsin (2024-05-31). "Success stories: How Book Dash is getting SA children reading". Daily Maverick. Retrieved 2025-01-30.
- ^ "Library of Congress Literacy Awards: 2020 Winners & Honorees". Library of Congress. 2020. Retrieved 2025-06-03.
- ^ "Nominated candidates 2024". Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award. 2024. Retrieved 2025-06-03.
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