Peace Library Recommendations Book to support 8 weeks Curriculum in Joglo Preschool
One of the main activities of the Peace Library Indonesia is reviewing and building a collection of reading books for children at the Peace Library in Indonesia, especially in Indonesian and local languages. The experience of studying with the global peace library team gave the team at the Indonesian peace library insight into how to choose storybooks that are suitable for children. I often visit public libraries and children’s libraries in Surakarta to see the diversity of children’s readings. I also connect online with the reading community and children’s book lovers to see the development of children’s story books published in Indonesia. Apart from that, I also often visit book fairs held in Surakarta, Jogjakarta or Semarang. From these experiences I began to make a list of books to add to my collection of books in peace libraries in Indonesia.
In August 2022, we added to our collection by purchasing Indonesian language children’s books from the publishers Litara, Aksa Berama, Provisi Edukasi and the Indonesia Heritage Foundation. We bought these books in quite large quantities, because besides the collection in Surakarta, we also sent books to the Peace library at Joglo Preschool and the Peace Library in Sentani Papua. To coincide with the indie book exhibition entitled “Patjar Merah” which was held in Surakarta on July 1 – 9 2023, we bought several Javanese language children’s books. These books are important additions to the Peace Library collections in Surakarta and at Joglo Preschool, because it will be easier for children to understand the stories in the local language.
Along with Indonesian and local language books, we also want to have a collection recommended by the Friends Peace Library collections as learning material for all reading levels with peace themes. We have to consider carefully how to buy imported books. If purchased in Indonesia, imported books are more expensive than local books. If purchased from abroad, shipping costs are more expensive than the price of the book. We researched the opportunities and bought some books from the Book Depository. The Book Depository is now closed, so we’ll have to do more research! We are very grateful that with social media and the internet we can meet online booksellers in Indonesia who can help us find the books we want at fairly affordable prices. It was great that Nanik and Petrus visited America in May and were able to bring books that we cannot buy in Indonesia. We will use those books to learn more about book levels and peace themes.
We really hope that this collection of books opens many windows for children. The window to see how Peace is, is as close as the books they can happily pick up and read.