Ariff Ahmad, is about a gang of children who help the police to arrest a man who is
responsible for a series of thefts in the district.
The Spider series, written by two of Singapore’s most prominent children’s writers,
Jessie Wee and Bessie Chuah, is intended for 2 to 12-year-olds. It consists of books of
short stories about the same gang of children,written in English to a formula with
predictable plots. The gang is made up of one Malay, Ali, one Indian, Siva, and two
Chinese children, Su Chong and Boon Liong; they have adventures in abandoned
dwellings or on a Malay kampong, inhabiting an old-fashioned world which is quite
foreign to the experience of modern children in Singapore, most of whom live in high-rise
flats on housing estates.
Children’s writers seem to be constrained by the requirements of the publishers who,
in turn, are influenced by the expectations and demands of parents. Didactic elements
are injected even into the most light-hearted fiction. However, there are examples of good
quality children’s books in English. Jessie Wee has also written some picture books for
pre-school children. A Home in the Sky (1992) and A Friend in Need (1992), illustrated
by Lee Kowling and sponsored by American Express International, are both stories set in
high-rise flats. David Loy has written some very good fantasies. Patrick and the Animal
Bushes (1981) is the story of the topiary works in Singapore Botanical Gardens coming
alive and The Last Troll in Singapore (1983) is about a young boy helping his father in a
bumboat business.
The National Book Development Council of Singapore recognises that children have
special reading needs, but there seems to be little in the way of positive encouragement
to authors, illustrators or publishers to motivate them to produce high quality children’s
books locally.
ThailandAlthough the country is rich in oral tradition, Thailand’s first books for children
appeared only in the early years of the twentieth century when the first schools were
established and European printing techniques were introduced into the country. Real
interest in children’s literature, however, dates back only to 1972, designated
International Book Year by UNESCO, and developments since then are largely due to a
small group of people, one of the most prominent of whom is Somboon Singkamanon of
Srinakharinwirot University in Bangkok, and the determination to make as much use as
possible of outside agencies such as UNESCO, UNICEF and the International Federation
of Library Associations (IFLA). By 1987, about 200 children’s books were being
published each year, including poetry, folk-tales, stories taken from Buddhist texts,
simplified versions of the classical literature of Thailand made attractive through
illustration, and some realistic stories.
In 1989 courses in children’s literature were being offered at eight out of the
ten universities and at twenty-one out of the thirty-six teacher training colleges. The
Book Development Centre of the Ministry of Education is closely involved with the Asian
Co-publication Programme (ACP), in which Thailand participates fully, and Thailand is at
the centre of the ASEAN Project on Children’s Books. CREDA (The Children’s Reading
Development Association) is very active and the Portable Library project, set up in 1989
816 THE WORLD OF CHILDREN’S LITERATURE