One of the things I enjoy most about being a teacher librarian is reading widely and being recommended great reads. I particularly enjoy being involved in the selection of the books for the Red Dot Award which is organised by The International Schools Library Network Singapore. Singapore is often referred to as the little red dot because we are a tiny dot on the world map, yet here in this island country, there is remarkable cultural diversity.

There are four categories for the award:

• Early Years (ages 3–7)
• Younger Readers (ages 7–10)
• Older Readers (ages 10-14)
• Mature Readers (ages 14-adult)

Shortlisted titles from recent children’s literature are chosen by a committee of teacher-librarians with the goal of offering a range of books from around the world. We look for diversity in:

• genres selected
• formats – we try to include one graphic novel and one non-fiction book in each category
• cultures/countries represented by the characters and of the authors, illustrators AND publishers
• the genders of the protagonist

Why is this important?

Hwang & Hindman (2014, p. 46) propose that “Multicultural literature teaches children about their heritage and the pride of their past. The illustrations, gender roles, and the language of the group should be accurate to represent the culture appropriately.” For their self esteem and sense of identity, all children need to see themselves, their family and their friends reflected in some of the books they read. My previous blog post on Why reading is important I wrote about Rudine Sims Bishop’s brilliant windows and mirrors metaphor. I also shared an amazing TED Talk where Chimamanda Adichie talks about the danger of a single story where she warns that if we hear only a single story about another person or country, we risk a critical misunderstanding. One of my favourite organisations is Room to Read who support school libraries and girls education in the developing world. They also understand the importance of readers looking in mirrors and identifying themselves in the books they read. They produce books that are written and illustrated by local talent in the countries where they work.

Diversity of gender is also so important and I wrote about this further in Children’s Literature, past, present and future. With regards to our process for longlisting and shortlisting the Red Dot books we actually create a table that indicates all of these elements of diversity and we often end up in very heated discussions over which very high quality books we have to omit. Sometimes it is because we have too many female protagonists, sometimes it is because we have too many books from the UK or US and sometimes it is because we have more than one book from that particular genre. I am involved in choosing the older and younger readers category and often realistic fiction seems to have too many good offerings. The process is quite long and lengthy, but it is one that ensures the library staff are looking out for and reading lots of different content that does not always come from mainstream publishers.

I thought I would finish this blog post by sharing some of my absolute favourite Red Dot Books from the four years I have been involved. Just last week we almost finished finalising our shortlists for the 2020-2021 selection. Go to the red dot site above to read more about what we do in our schools to promote these books and also for the new lists which should be coming soon. You may also be interested in these three other book awards created by teacher librarians in International Schools from within Asia, Panda Book Awards, Bangkok Book Awards and the Hong Kong Golden Dragon.

Favourite Red Dot Books so far:

Early Years: Room on Our Rock, The Invisible Boy, Molly and Mae and 7 ate 9

Younger Readers: The Elephant, Stories for Kids Who Dare to Be Different, The Happiness Box, Ida Always, A Boy Called Bat, The House on Silat Road and Mango and Bambang

Older Readers: Illegal, Finding Wonders, The Goldfish Boy, Secrets of Singapore, The 1000 year old boy, Posted,  Front Desk, Save Me a Seat, The Thing About Jellyfish, Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus and Sachiko

It was hard to just limit to these titles and I am afraid I could not suggest for the mature readers because I am not yet mature enough to read these texts…

Hwang, S. & Hindman, J. T. (2014). Strategies for adoption children’s refugee literature in the multicultural classroom. Journal of Arts and Humanities, 3(12), 42-53. Retrieved from https://www.theartsjournal.org/index.php/site