The Elephant and the Tree: February 2007

Interview on FM93.8, Dec 18, 2006

To hear, go to
http://www.podcast.sg/rsi_english/thewritestuff/
thewritestuff_artscamp.mp3

This written version is taken from
http://www.rsi.sg/english/thewritestuff/view/
20061218181244/1/.html

Very Special Authors...

December 18, 2006

Once upon a time in a land not so far away, there lived some very special children who were invited to an extraordinary event but they did not know what to wear or what to say.

So what did they do? Find out in the Write Stuff with me, Loretta Foo.

The Media Development Authority of Singapore honoured a group of talented first-time children’s authors by turning their dreams books into reality.
In turn, five of them came up with an unusual way to present their stories to children with special needs-by incorporating their stories into a drama.

Lee Jin Pyn is the author and illustrator of “The Elephant and the Tree” and she tells us more about the writers’ collaboration with Very Special Arts.

JP: Very Special Arts is a non-profit organization that uses arts to reach out to children and adults with special needs. Art is a platform for them to express themselves as well to help integrate into certain normalities in terms of activities.

Why use story-books to reach out to these special children?

JP: Children’s stories are always a part of children’s lives. Fairy tales and all, I think we all grew up with them, even special children as well and I think special children are even more innocent in some sense of the word because to them, a lot of social constraints are not registered so they are very much themselves, as child-like as they are. So using fairytales would be very appropriate because it really transports us.

How did you bring the stories across to them?

JP: We had story-telling sessions. Besides just reading the stories or just story-telling, the stories came alive through various other art activities like painting, drawing and the children also dramatized three of the plays; all three from the books themselves. One was “The Boy with the Crumpled Tees”, the other was “Emily The Duckling says Humph!” and “The Elephant and the Tree” was the third. The stories became alive to them which encourages them to read more and is a good activity for any kid, special or not.

How do you as an author feel about the camp and seeing your book being dramatized?

JP: I used to volunteer for Very Special Arts camp so I know the benefits of the camp for the children but I think that we as the authors who went there for story-telling enjoyed ourselves a lot more. I think we were the ones who benefited from it, seeing our stories dramatized. The kids were really, really adorable and we totally enjoyed ourselves and it was lovely to see our stories come alive and that there is another way in which the stories can be told besides just on print.

Wong Gek Noi is the mother of a special needs child who attended the three day Very Special Arts Camp and she tells us how her daughter responded to the story-telling sessions and the dramatization of the stories.

GN: She thoroughly enjoyed the sessions and she would come home being very happy and excited to attend the next day’s events. She got a chance to do what she liked to do which is to create things that are not handicrafts and to do things the way she wants to. If you put her with mainstream children, normally I find that it’s more rigid, they will probably ask her to draw on the board and ask them to please complete it.

Can you tell me one of your most special memories in the camp?

GN: They were told the story of the elephant and the tree and she was given a choice which role she wanted to act in so she chose the role of the cat and then she was told to make her own costumes so she decided that she would draw two ears and she even brought a hairband from home and she glued the two ears to the hairband and put it on her head. I thought it was very cute! And then she decided that she would draw some whiskers and glued it to her cheeks. It’s wonderful that she had the chance to make her own costume.

That was Gek Noi, mother of one of the camp’s participants.

All the children’s books used in the camp are available in bookshops here.
So how does the fairy-tale end? Happily ever after of course, when these special children discovered that they could dance and sing to their hearts’ content with their fairy god-writers watching over them.
I’m Loretta Foo ending off the Write Stuff this week for Radio Singapore International.