Writers, Illustrators and Critics of the Future - Mungo Makes New Friends at Dundee Polish School

It’s always fabulous to hear about how the next generation is discovering the range of stories we make available as dual language books. This blog post has kindly been contributed by Gill Aitchison, author of the charming ‘Mungo Makes New Friends’ which is available in 20 dual language editions. Gill and Polish teacher/translator Karolina Lewandowska read the story in both English and Polish to eager listeners at Dundee Polish School. Thank you also to Gill for the lovely photographs; there’s a long, proud history of Dundee bringing stories to eager readers, and it’s great to see the good work continuing. Here is Gill’s account.

Dundee Polish School invited me to read 'Mungo Makes New Friends' to the Primary classes. Karolina Lewandowska, who had retold the book in Polish, is a teacher at the Saturday school. 

Karolina and I read the book page by page alternating between English and Polish. The audience were attentive and great listeners. In a follow up Q and A session, I was delighted at how many young people in the audience were interested in becoming writers and illustrators and translators. Several of them were already making their own dual language books. 
 
Afterwards the classes wrote book reviews on Mungo Makes New Friends. Happily they all liked the story and had learned a few new words in English and Polish.

    
 
It's always worthwhile reflecting on these visits and it made me realise that here are the writers and illustrators and critics of the future. Children's picture books can be the source of inspiration for these careers. So let's encourage these young people to read, write, draw and review as much as we can. 

ALL IMAGES USED WITH KIND PERMISSION OF GILL AITCHISON AND DUNDEE POLISH SCHOOL.