Al Ittihad Newspaper – Closing of the third silent book fair in Al Ain

Abu Dhabi (Al Ittihad)

The United Arab Emirates Youth Council, in cooperation with the Department of Culture and Tourism of Abu Dhabi, has recently closed the third edition of "The Silent Book Exhibition", which is being held in Abu Dhabi. is held over a month on the theme "Discover a story beyond words!"
The exhibition, organized by the Abu Dhabi Department of Culture and Tourism at the Zayed Central Library in Al Ain, attracted visitors from children, teenagers, painters, writers, writers, authors and others, to a journey into the world of reading through 82 text-free books from 21 different countries. All over the world, selected by the national branches of the International Council of Books for Youth.
"We are delighted to organize the third edition of the Silent Book Fair in Al Ain to present to the UAE public this type of book that gives children the opportunity to let their imagination run wild and understand what is going on around them through images and expressive caricatures, "said Marwa Al Aqroubi, president of the UAE Youth Book Council. Has attracted the attention of publishing industry workers on this type of book and on the role played in the eradication of visual illiteracy and enriched the imagination of children with knowledge ".
"The book contains no text understood by all children, whatever their language or culture, because the language of the drawings is universal and everyone can understand them."
"We appreciate this wonderful initiative of the Emirates Youth Book Council, and our participation in the organization of the exhibition and our willingness to welcome it is a conviction of the importance of the image and its impact on the transmission of a particular message to children, "said Abdulla Majid Al Ali, executive director of the library sector, Children's Minds have a visual narrative power allowing them to raise issues of interest to this age group attracted by the image because of their inability to read correctly or to not have the language of the writer of this story. Al-Ali insisted that silent books had more influence because they said a lot of words and colors. The silent book fair organized a series of workshops led by a group of painters and writers to develop children's mental skills, help them better understand the ideas of these books, introduce them to the techniques used in these activities and help participants understand the leading role played by books. Silent in spreading messages of love and tolerance.
The silent book project was launched in 2012 by the International Council of Youth Books on the island of Lampedusa, an Italian island in the Mediterranean and the main point of entry for European immigrants to the region Africa and the Middle East, to provide refugee children from the island a collection of comics not containing On the texts, to help them overcome language barriers, understand and appreciate those books.
In just a few years, the project has been a resounding success. It has evolved into a traveling exhibition held annually in one of the world's largest cities to highlight the power of images and graphics to convey human meanings and concepts to young readers.