AltCity-Learning to CARE Children's Story Writing Competition


Writing Children’s Books with a Message
 

The Association for Volunteer Services, in collaboration with AltCity and the Arab Thought Foundation, gave a workshop "Writing Children's Books with a Message" on Monday (July 25) as part of the AltMedia Experience at AltCity, a new and creative space for community engagement in the Montreal Building on Hamra Street in Beirut. In conjunction with the workshop, we are having a children’s story writing competition with a dealine of noon this Friday, July 29. Whether you attended the workshop or not, we invite you to join in the competition.

 

OBJECTIVE OF THE COMPETITION

To encourage authors and would-be authors to produce children’s books that foster a culture of volunteering in Arab youth.

 

CRITERIA FOR CONSIDERATION

  1. Content: The book should have a social message – motivating the reader in terms of an important social cause. Whether volunteering is the primary message or a secondary message of the story, the story should help motivate the reader to volunteer, help the reader understand how to be good volunteer, or present the story of one or more role models of volunteering for the elderly, disabled, sick, orphans, the environment, etc.
  2. Target age of readers: The story must be directed to children from 1st to 6th grade.
  3. Original: The story must be the original effort of the author submitting it.
  4. Culturally authentic: The story must be culturally authentic to Lebanon and/or other Arab countries (in terms of character names, setting, illustrations, etc.) – focusing on what is culturally authentic, not western borrowing (Arabic names, for example, rather English or French names used in Lebanon).
  5. Language: The story must be written in Arabic or English or bilingual Arabic/English. Note: Arabic is preferred, but if it is in Arabic, a rough translation in English is requested - for an understanding of the storyline, not the beauty of writing style. If in Arabic, the Arabi 21 level should be noted.
  6. Illustrations: Ideally the manuscript should include at least rough illustrations or it can show the space for an illustration with a description of what will be illustrated.
  7. Formatting:  The manuscript should be presented in final choice of font, font size, etc (as noted in the Arabi21 criteria), whether handwritten or computer text.
  8. Suggested, not required: For greater chance of being published for use in schools, the story should fit with the curriculum guidelines for the target grade.

RESOURCES

A number of resources that might be useful to you in writing your story are available in the Resources section of this website, including:

In addition, upon request, we can send you the guidelines for the new Arabi21 classicification of Arabic children's books that supports a gradual increase in the difficulty of style and text. Books that follow those guidelines will be more marketable to schools in the Arab region.
 

PROCEDURES FOR SUBMISSION

All stories must be submitted either as hardcopy to AltCity or by email to initiative@avs.org.lb, by NO LATER THAN Noon, Friday, July 29. The awards will be announced at the closing ceremony for AltMedia Experience on Saturday evening, July 30.

Information: The manuscript must be submitted with the following information: Title of story, name of author, contact name, phone number, and email address.

 

NOTE: The Initiative to Foster a Culture of Volunteering has an LTC Book Certification and Awards Program whose deadline is November 5 with many of the same guidelines (though stories must be in Arabic). For more information, see www.arabvolunteer.org/children'sbooks