Background

Children make books in many ways, in many places, from the home to the classroom and in a range of public spaces in between. Often these books remain one-off productions, shared, displayed, and treasured within homes and classrooms. Sometimes these books are published as multiple printed copies, in editions small or large.

My practice of co-publishing books with children as authors, as developed through the work of Kids’ Own Publishing in Australia, encompasses two key approaches that place the publishing process at the heart: micropublishing and collaborative community books.

Micro-publishing involves transforming a single sheet of paper into a book imposition (the layout of pages on a single sheet of paper) to facilitate cost-effective 'instant publishing' in situ using a computer printer or photocopier (sometimes referred to as the magic publishing box). The printed sheets are easily folded, cut or stapled to form an edition of small self-covered book (or zine). Micro-published books are described by a variety of names, such as the hotdog book, the origami book, the 12-page fold. They may be handmade through hands-on art activities, and typically include collage, and use of oil pastels and aqua brush watercolours, or they are created digitally using the wePublish app 
https://kidsownpublishing.com/products/we-publish-our-voices-app/.
Collaborative community publications bring together children with their families, friends and wider community to experience storytelling, art making and teamwork through an artist-led approach. Community books and micro-published books are often displayed in a Kids’ Own Book Cubby https://kidsownpublishing.com/products/kids-own-book-cubby/. Hobart Library recently commissioned a Kids’ Own Book Cubby, built by the Clarence Plains Men’s Shed. This Book Cubby will be used to archive contemporary Tasmanian children’s stories and voices.

This project has been a valuable opportunity to reflect on my long and deeply held artistic/creative practice through a fresh lens, for which I am grateful for the opportunity ArTELIER provided. This, at a time of reflection on my practice in an academic context, as part of undertaking a PhD on educators’ pedagogies for publishing books with children as authors.

The Project

This small ArTELIER project was established as a partnership with Claremont Goodstart after they expressed interest in the Kids’ Own Publishing collection of books by children for children, with the aim of introducing some practices long established in Victoria and Australia wide to a Tasmanian group of artists. For me it was a step from a leadership role into a practitioner role for the first time in a few years. I wanted to bring a fresh approach to this partnership. With this came some significant learnings.

The aims and objectives of the project were to engage the wider Goodstart Claremont community in creating and making small micro-published books that shared and celebrated community stories, taking an emergent approach – that is, with no pre-set plan, but in a way that followed interest and opportunities, drawing on the pool of ArTELIER artists and my personal skills and expertise over a period of approximately six months.

During the course of the project we:

Held a successful introductory professional learning workshop (VR) (February 2019)

Undertook regular informal drop-in sessions micro-publishing with children (VR) (July- December 2019)

Hosted an ArTELIER Learning Exchange in Claremont on the theme and visited the Goodstart Centre (ArTELIER artists x8) (July 2019)

Held a Saturday morning workshop for families and staff to make Fathers’ day books with artist Bec Stevens (August 2019)

Held review meetings to plan the remainder of the project, and made the decision to work on a simple, small scale community book (August 2019)

Held art-making workshops for the collaborative publication with artists Tanya Maxwell and Steve Lovegrove (photographer) (including one planning meeting)(October 2019)

Planned to hold a professional learning workshop for early years professionals and artists to share co-publishing with children (March/April 2020 – cancelled due to Covid 19)

Finally, published a book from the children’s artwork, In The Tree Castle (April 2020)

Take - aways

Specifically, there were a number of key learnings:

An emergent approach to project design was suited to working with very young children on ‘in the moment’ micro-published books. It allowed for flexible, responsive content and instant publishing (a key feature of micro-publishing*). It gave space to respond to the teachers and staff and take opportunities in a busy day

An emergent approach does not suit the demands of a community publication – that requires a clear timeline, identified roles and responsibilities, and significant buy in from the community to engage in the process

A published community book was not part of the original planning and lacked an adequate budget to see it through in a timely fashion – for assembling the content, design, printing and distribution 

The publishing process needed to be articulated more clearly at an earlier stage of the project for both participants and artists. For example, trust was broken when, through a communication breakdown, the teachers were directed to publish a book by every child, a monumental task, rather than publishing one book with all children’s contributions for Fathers’ Day

There may be a disconnect between the Goodstart community’s expectations of the content and purpose of the book and the process driven, child-centred approach of the artists. 

The result is a delightful, quirky book that presents some of the emotional terrain of young children through the eyes of their puppet creations who find sanctuary in a safe space, a magic Tree Castle. However, at the time of writing, the books have yet to reach their full intended audience or celebrated with the children their families and friends (a key feature of collaborative community publishing). I admit having overreached my capacity, allowed expectations to shift from embedding small scale micro-publishing to a more ambitious collaborative community publication, and in doing so strained the relationship that is indeed the project (Lillie, 2020).

Victoria Ryle - May 2020

Lillie, J. (2020). The Relationship is the Project: working with communities. Australia: Brow Books.