BOOK DASH: Producing South African Storybooks and Promoting Literacy

This week’s Woman of the Week is Julia Norrish, who manages and runs Book Dash; a local not-for-profit publisher that exists to get beautiful South African storybooks into the hands of children who need them. These are her words after she answered some of my questions about the organization, how it operates, and how we can all get involved.

Julia describes herself as naturally curious and frequently dissatisfied.  She explains that the first is a great character trait and essential to growth, but wouldn’t recommend the latter to others.  Although dissatisfaction allows her to see and question systems that aren’t working, or no longer serving their intended purpose; it can also lead to frustration and a tendency to become overly critical.  It’s not something that she can switch off, though, and she believes that she will always be on the lookout for better solutions to societal struggles. She turned 26 last year, and says that it was a real wake-up call to suddenly be closer to 30 than 20. “Time doesn’t wait for you,” she says, “If you want to see change, you need to incite it and always be aware of the purpose behind what you are doing.” 

Julia has always loved stories and children, and her work at Book Dash has allowed her to combine those passions.  She speaks honestly about mental illness, and insists that it’s something that we should be openly discussing if we want to destigmatize it.  She states, “Mental illness affects almost everyone at one point or another, but for some it can be a lifelong companion that is difficult to shake. It doesn’t define you, but it does mould you in integral ways that would be useless to deny. Similar to other struggles, if you make it through the impact it can also have positive effects. I find that my experience with depression over the past ten years has been a huge driver for me, making me determined to succeed and not to give in. It has forced me to build grit and resilience, both of which I’ve come to think of as the most valuable qualities in a challenging (and changing) world. I encourage people to acknowledge any conditions they may be battling and then build a life that takes them into account (allowing for self-care, for example), rather than pretending that they don’t exist.”

Book Dash first began in 2014 as a vision project among friends who wished to pool their collective skills in the publishing industry, in order to flood South Africa with new, high-quality African storybooks. They publish children’s books, but do things a little differently, in the hopes of making the books accessible for all. The name ‘Book Dash’ stems from the process of creating the books; the 12-hour, fast-paced book-making events.  The first event was held in 2014, and the organization has since proven that high-quality books in many languages can be produced and distributed affordably; the majority of them completely free to the child.  Julia notes that the finely-tuned, and continually-perfected Book Dash model for publishing quality books, at their quick pace, has real potential to revolutionize content-creation and access to books in South Africa, and to under-resourced communities across the world.  Book Dash has produced 108 titles so far, and has printed and distributed over 200,000 copies to children and families in South Africa.  Julia joined Book Dash in 2015 and has been managing the organization ever since. The main operations include organizing the book-making events, managing translations across all 11 of South Africa’s official languages, and printing and distributing the physical books across the country.

There is lots of research that confirms the educational impact of Book Dash’s aim to provide books to children in need, however Julia says that the look of awe in a child’s face when they are told that the book really is theirs to keep is just as compelling evidence. She notes that children are naturally curious and that books open up new worlds, but in South Africa there is a lack of contextually-appropriate print materials for young children, especially in their home languages.  Even children who are fortunate enough to have access to some books end up reading about snow, foxes and other things that aren’t relative to a South African context.  Book Dash fills that gap. The books are also all available for anyone to read freely online at bookdash.org. Julia adds that they can even be downloaded and printed out at home because of the open-license that they use. Due to the great quality of the books and the open-license which overrides the copyright of the book, anyone is able to use and share the books freely without paying or requiring permission.  As a result, Book Dash books are used all over the world to promote literacy and have been translated into so many languages that they’ve lost count.

In terms of the support that they’ve received, Julia says that there has been a lot and she thinks that this is due to it being a project that really captures everyone’s hearts.  She says, “We’re ordinary people, using what skills and talents we have to make an extraordinary impact.  We have a lot of people helping us, of course, but day-to-day it's not a big operation: until June I was the only full-time employee, and even now it's just two of us working hard every day to get more books to kids, no frills about it. We couldn't be here without the creative volunteers who make the books, who are professionals in their fields but give up a day (and their egos) to make great books for kids.”  She says that they also owe their gratitude to the funding partners who believe in Book Dash and its vision, and the distribution partners who do amazing work on the ground to make sure that the books get to the kids.  She says that everyone does their bit where they can, and as Desmond Tutu said, “It's those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.”

Book Dash has a dream that every child in South Africa can own a hundred books by the age of five; meaning that they would be book owners and likely avid readers before they even reach school.  That is 600 million books! At their cost of printing the books, this could be a reality for R6 billion, which may sound like a lot, but is just .02% of the basic education budget.  She notes that one might think that you can’t simply give books to children and get readers out of them; however research shows that the number of books in the home is a powerful and significant predictor of children’s reading achievement, even when other factors are controlled (Shubert & Becker, 2010).  Julia elaborates that in a 27-nation study of 70 000+ cases, it was found that the number of books in the home has as great an impact on children’s reading attainment as parental education levels, and has a greater impact than father’s occupation or family socio-economic status (Evans et al., 2010).   Her conclusion to this is that giving away books can literally override a seemingly impenetrable cycle of poverty and illiteracy in South Africa. On a personal level, Julia hopes to grow Book Dash to a point to where she can spend more time on the ground, reading with children, and less time behind a desk.

There are many ways that people can get involved and extend their support to Book Dash detailed here.  Word of mouth and telling people about the work that Book Dash does, especially those who work with children, have children, or have access to funds that could be used to print books, is the easiest way to support.  Their aim is to put literacy at the forefront of everyone’s minds.  You can also buy physical Book Dash books here, and they hope to have an online shop on their website soon.

Julia is a testament to someone using her skills in order to help others and serve a very important need in the community.  Her love and zest for what she does is so evident, and is contagious to the children that she works with.  Her work and passion are inspiring and unyielding, and provide a strong impetus for change in South Africa, and many other countries facing poverty and illiteracy.