Teachers with books
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Story: Rohan Francis
Children at local schools will soon be able to read stories in Roma, Slovak and English as specialist teaching staff at Owler Brook school prepare to launch their own unique collection of books and reading materials based on traditional European fairy tales.
Little Red Riding Hood, Hansel and Gretel, Jack and the Beanstalk and the Enormous Turnip have been selected as the first stories to be carefully translated by Zuzana Remperova and her team. Zuzana told the Messenger she had tried to buy Roma reading books for children in her class but she could not find any anywhere. She even tried the bookshops in Slovakia!
After searching for the right stories, Zuzana and her colleague Mario Sandor decided to produce their own books and set about the process of translating thetext. They struck upon the idea of getting the children involved too, and helped them to produce illustrations to go with each story.
The books have been professionally printed and are available alongside a variety of related reading materials, games and puzzles – all contained in a specially made sack for families to take home and explore together.
Sue Bridges, headteacher of Owler Brook explained the idea behind the project.
“The story sacks were created to extend the range of Roma reading material available to our children, to involve the children and parents in a project, to promote reading at home with our families. We have an extensive range of story sacks in other languages > but were unable to find anything on the market in Roma or Slovak. Initial funding to devise the sacks was provided by the Library Service at the Bannerdale Centre.
“Parents and children worked together to compile pictures and animation for the books and DVDs. Slovakian and Roma Teaching Assistants translated the text. The majority of the 100 sacks made have gone out to other local primary schools to use with their children and families. In each sack is a DVD presented in Roma to demonstrate how to use the sacks at home."
The Enormous Turnip
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From the Enormous Turnip
English: So they pulled and pulled, and suddenly the giant turnip came out. And everyone enjoyed a lovely turnip dinner.
Roma: Cirdenas, cirdenas, a jek far e bari repa has avri. A savore chale la repatar večera.
Slovak: Ťahali a ťahali, a zrazu obrovská repa bola von. A všetci si na nej pochutnali na večeru.
