ABSTRACT
Picturebooks represent an underdeveloped potential in Turkey, given the depth and richness of the country’s literary and visual heritage. Turkish—a part of the Turkish language family and linked with languages such as Tatar, Uzbek and Kazakh, to name a few—is used widely across Europe and Asia (Göksel and Kerslake 2005). Turkish children’s books overall are nourished from a large and diverse number of sources, mostly European, Anatolian, Central Asian, Persian and Arabic. The ancient land of Anatolia has for centuries been a literary wellspring for important writers, poets and storytellers including Homer, Aesop, Nasreddin, Yunus Emre and Rumi. In terms of visual heritage, the history from which Turkish children’s books might draw extends from the Hittites to the Sumerians, from Byzantine mosaics to Ottoman miniatures. Yet in terms of the production of children’s literature, most books so far have consisted of illustrated children’s books, where a focus on the development of cognitive and linguistic abilities has rested on the text, with the illustrations themselves little more than an afterthought. Access to children’s literature in Turkey is largely tied to affordability: the wealthiest families spend fourteen times more on educational expenditures than the poorest (Alonso et al. 2011), and premium picturebooks, priced higher than illustrated books, remain a luxury for the few. Most children who are not enrolled in preschool education, 70.8 percent in 2011 (Eurostat 2014), might have no access to picturebooks at all. While there are constant attempts to promote reading, bookstart projects and picturebooks in libraries are not common. 1 Enriched Libraries Project (Z-Kütüphane) run by the Ministry of National Education (MoNE) is an attempt launched in 2011 to jumpstart school libraries including preschools which will gradually increase the access of children to quality picturebooks.
