PINEAPPLE LANE

Aim: To publish dual language, mother tongue books for children displaced by conflict.

Little Toller is starting a new publishing imprint, PINEAPPLE LANE, to create dual-language, mother tongue books for children displaced by conflict. Starting with six Ukrainian titles this April, our aim is to publish books written, translated and illustrated by authors and artists whose own lives have also been disrupted by war. Although these titles will be available in bookshops nationwide and on our website, our main intention is to distribute copies free to displaced families, to help children stay connected to the language and culture they have left behind. We also want the books to be available free to the communities where displaced families are living within the UK, to enable cultural exchange and understanding in schools, libraries and other grassroots organisations.

Pineapple Lane is a creative response to war and a recognition of the essential role that books play in providing escape and comfort, while also being a useful tool for inspiring learning about language and culture. The project has its roots in Packed with Hope, a campaign that enabled Little Toller to deliver 10,000 book-filled backpacks to children still in Ukraine and those forced across borders into neighbouring Poland and Romania. With the help of 250 volunteers, the backpacks were filled over a single weekend with comforting and useful things like head torches, notepads, pencil cases, food, toothbrushes, puzzles, scarves, well-wishing cards from children in the UK, and a copy of the dual-language book How War Changed Rondo. It was this book, written by Romana Romanyshyn and Andriy Lesiv, a husband-and-wife team from Lyiv whose livelihoods as writers and artists in Ukraine have been severely affected by the war, that made us realise how important access to books are in times of crisis, particularly for families who have been forced to leave their homes abruptly with very few possessions.

Since the war in Ukraine started, over 6 million people have fled. The UK Government has processed over 206,000 visas for Ukrainian refugees, the vast majority of them being women and children who have experienced terrible upheaval and loss. Being separated from family and friends, from communities and schools, from familiar people and places, means that the intangible threads of language and culture are also broken. Our aim with Pineapple Lane is to reconnect some of these broken threads by publishing beautiful picture books for children who have experienced the trauma of war. By giving them access to stories, often familiar folktales or cultural myths, we hope they’ll find some emotional comfort in reading or speaking in their mother tongue. Because each book will be published in English, printed side-by-side, we want the books to also be useful and inspirational tools to encourage the exchange of language and culture in schools, with host families or among other community organisations that work with refugees.

Pineapple Lane is supported by the Arts Council of England, and with your help we will be able to print more Ukrainian-English books and begin to commission artists and writers whose lives have been disrupted by war in other parts of the world, such as Somalia, Ethiopia, Afghanistan and Syria. By supporting Pineapple Lane, you will become a patron of the publishing project or simply give books directly to people in your community or elsewhere in the UK.

We aim to publish the first six titles in mid-April 2023, in time for Ukrainian Easter celebrations.

This project successfully funded on 15th March 2023