Every time has its own circumstances and lifestyle, and one has to be flexible enough to live through any circumstance. The business suspension and loss faced by the world and the psychological and social impact of obligatory home quarantine for people at their homes due to COVID-19 pandemic had undoubtedly affected the entire world, whether individuals or families, institutions and governments. Publishing sector in the Arab world was one of the most important sectors that have been deeply affected, since publishing industry was paralyzed for more than three months.
As the owner of a publishing house concerned with children's literature, we decided to support the reader, so we launched a blog called (# Remotely_Together), through which we provided some of our publications for free digital reading and we organized a competition for creative writing. Then, we held reading sessions for children and young people, in cooperation with institutions in the country, such as Abu Dhabi Libraries, UAE Board on Books for Young People, Culture Without Borders and Ministry of Culture. Such sessions were various, as some of them were previously recorded and some were presented in an audio form only, including live broadcast sessions with children.
As far as we are concerned at Al Fulk Translation and Publishing, the cultural experience of direct digital reading sessions had the greatest impact on us and children. We gained the experience of learning and interacting with children digitally. In addition, we believe that such sessions achieve one of our most important goals, in terms of instilling reading behaviors in our children. Thus, direct interaction with them allows them to love reading. We did not read and narrate stories only, but we held discussions with them about what we read, so we made sure of our children's ability of comprehension, analysis, discussion and creative narration.
As a publishing house concerned with Arab children's literature, we must make use of the content we produced before the crisis in such reading sessions, so as to revive the love of reading in the hearts of our children, and we should not be worried about the severe decline in the number of publications and sales during 2020. Therefore, what we will gain from encouraging and motivating our children to read through these digital reading sessions is the greatest and most successful investment that can be made during this crisis.
