Inspiring Young Readers
posted on 06 Jun 2016
St Joseph's Youth Group Event
Karen Argent took her collection of children's books that feature asylum seekers and refugees along to a half term event for a group of young people aged between twelve and seventeen from St Joseph's Church, Malvern. The idea was to use these books as part of an informal awareness raising session to prepare to welcome Syrian Refugees to Worcestershire, some of whom will be arriving over the next few months as part of the Governments resettlement scheme. The idea for working with this particular group developed as a result of a training day held in Malvern a couple of months ago as a way to disseminate information to lots of different community groups in the local area.
The private home of one of the Youth Group co -ordinators was a marvellous setting to do this in comfort and the book display was beautifully set against the living room window with its views across the Worcestershire countryside.
Talking about the books was just part of the day which also included everyone discussing the many needs of seven Syrian family members and also imagining what it would be like to live under the terrifying ' Crocogod' regime with its many rules and restrictions.
Karen recommended six books from the list below ( see link)for young people to take away to read and invited reviews of these to be published in St Joseph's Parish magazine and on The Letterpress Project website. ' The Arrival ' by Shaun Tan was definitely the one that caught the eye of several who wanted to take it away to enjoy. One young woman was engrossed with looking at the pictures and it was wonderful to witness how looking at a book was making a deep impression. She and others said that they would be buying the book for themselves and the organiser promised to buy more copies if necessary. Another pair were torn between choosing ' Refugee Boy' by Benjamin Zephaniah and ' The Other Side of Truth' by Beverley Naidoo.
What was most interesting, and perhaps concerning , was that none of the books had ever been seen before by any of the adults or children who attended. Food for thought.