Here in the UK we have an impressive history of publishing for children with attractive, well designed, highly illustrated books designed to catch the eye and attract a reader. Since Walter Crane, Randolph Caldecott and Kate Greenaway, whose works were printed by the innovative Edmund Evans, we have enjoyed a stream of writers and illustrators who have become embedded in our consciousness. And this continues as publishers once more present quality picture books and novels to children of all ages. We have a wealth on our doorstep. The criticism that British publishing is very insular has some truth. What about the wider world? Is it, perhaps, easiest to look across the Channel to Europe but not further afield? The Middle East perhaps?

In this latest issue of IBBYLink we look at publishing across the Arab World., and wonder why we are not seeing some of the books mentioned here in translation. However, it is also important that we see them in Arabic. And this can cause a problem – how to identify them, what books are recommended, who are the publishers?

Hasmig Chahinian with IBBY France has curated the catalogue 100 books for Children in Arabic which can be found on the IBBY Europe website. She talks about the need and the motivation, how the books are identified and the collaboration with publishers across the Arab world. It is an inspiration – and something needed here. Luckily it can be accessed in English as well as French; a truly inclusive project that is firmly grounded in IBBY ideals.

Another such project comes from Germany through the International Youth Library in Munich. Children’s Literature in Arabic was a three-year project to look at the need in Germany for books in Arabic, how to identify the best and how to promote them and recommend translation so that librarians and teachers could feel confident in recommending and using them, though as Jochen Weber points out, acquisition is indeed a problem. The project has been very successful and resulted in a series of annual catalogues – all annotated – that can be obtained from the Library.

These are projects near to home, perhaps. What about that more distant seeming world? Who are the people behind the creation of the books that are featured in these catalogues? What are children and young readers across the Arabic-speaking world finding to read? Yasmine Motawy talks about the changes she has seen in publishing there, especially in picture books – the books reaching the youngest and inspiring early imaginations, creating readers and creators of the future. In her article we meet some of these creators, putting faces to names. It is such a positive message.