KARACHI: The three-day Children’s Book Illustrators Workshop, which concluded on Friday, helped many illustrators and story writers to work on several children’s picture story ideas to come out with authentic good quality children’s literature in Pakistan.

The workshop was a collaboration between Idara-e-Taleem-o-Aagahi, Room to Read and Arts Council of Pakistan, Karachi.

The trainers, Global Literacy Adviser from Room to Read Mahesh Pathirathna and renowned Pakistani author and illustrator Rumana Husain, worked with the writers and illustrators on important aspects of a children’s picture book such as text placements, illustrations and double spreads.

For a colourfully illustrated children’s book, it was explained by the trainers that the text should not be too high or too low. For double spreads it should also not be in the middle or it will be lost in the book’s binding. There are so many little things here or there to consider when putting together a picture book for children.

The students on day one were shown visuals of local and international children’s picture books. They were shown how to develop characters and show their moods. Rumana Husain explained that a book illustration is different from a painting. “A painting is a one off thing but book illustrations are more challenging as they are telling a story,” she said.

The participants on the second day of the workshop selected stories to provide visuals to. These stories were the ones many of them had already worked on during the Children’s Book Writer’s Workshop, which was held last week at the same venue.

On the third day, the trainers reviewed each participant’s illustrated storybook. Mahesh Pathirathna, who is visiting from Sri Lanka and has himself written a storybook for children that is based in Karachi’s Lyari, spoke to the participants about research.

He said that research was also required for illustrating books. “You need to research the history, the culture of where your story is set. You may not even need to bring what you research in your book but still you need to know it to come up with something new and unique,” he said.

He went through the work of Khushi Islam, Kashaf Asim, Waleed Murtaza and the others while giving advice to all about how they can improve their books.

One participant, Waleed Murtaza, who was a very good illustrator, was concentrating more on his central character, a rickshaw with eyes and ears on the road. And in doing so, he missed adding people and other things on the road such as animal carts, other vehicles including bikes, buses, etc.

Rumana Husain, during the second half of the final day, pointed out that what people say “to ‘not judge a book by its cover’, doesn’t work for children’s books or any other book, too, these days. Of course, it is the book cover that makes one reach out for a book first to see what it is about. And for children’s books the cover matters all the more,” she said.

Published in Dawn, July 13th, 2024