week one

Mining the University

Week One

1/19/13

“Middle East Story Time” @ Urbana Free Library

Middle East Story Time - The Illustrator's Notebook

Speaker

Angela Williams: Associate Director, CSAMES

Date Jan 19, 2013

Time2:00 pm - 2:45 pm  

Location

Megan's Reading Room at the Urbana Free Library; 210 West Green Street; Urbana, Illinois

Info: “The Illustrator's Notebook by Egyptian author Mohieddin Ellabbad is a book with many levels of meaning. It is an account of an artist's creative sources and of how he grew up to be a famous illustrator. It is an appeal to children to see the world and find inspiration in the most ordinary visual sources. It is a testament to the value of diversity, exemplified by the fact that while some people read from let to right, others read the opposite way, which affects how they see and even dream. It is an introduction to Egypt and its extraordinary visual world and, finally, it is a demonstration of the beauty of written Arabic. After reading the book, children will make their own small notebooks.”

Own observations:

Angela brought in a helper who spoke the language of the book (Arabic). They each read passages from the book in both languages stopping to ask questions to the children present. Some questions asked were what’s your name? What’s an illustrator? Have you ever heard of Egypt? They also taught the kids the Arabic words for “good morning” and “thank you”. The book that was chosen at this presentation/lecture was The Illustrator’s Notebook by Mohieddin Ellabbad. In my opinion I don’t think that this was a wise choice of book to read to the age group present. The book was about how the author became an illustrator so it acted as a journal/autobiography. Because of this I feel the kids were distracted and not following what was going on or being said. Also reading it in both languages caused the reading to drag on causing more confusion and restlessness. After reading and going over two or three pages Angela passed around souvenirs from when she herself visited Egypt. The kids seemed to like that because it was something a little more interesting to see and handle.

            Then she showed a YouTube video “Ya Salam Ya Balady” with was a slideshow of the various people and places that are popular in Egypt. After the video she opened up for any questions the audience may have had and then the lecture moved to the children’s section of the library for an activity. For the activity kids were able to create their own mini journals/scrapbooks on some of the things that are important to them as Mohieddin Ellabbad did in his book.

Fun Facts:

Arabic read from right to left so Mohieddin Ellabbad’s book opened that way as well.