When the bee enjoys pizza. When the rabbit eats ice cream. These were the titles of a couple of stories written by children who attended a story writing workshop during the Sharjah International Book Fair on Friday.The two-day writing and illustrating workshop was organized by the UAE Board on Books for Young People and was conducted by Emirati children’s author and illustrator Maitha Al Khayat. In the first day of the workshop, after taking the children through her own books, Maitha asked them to write names of animals, verbs and dishes on separate pieces of paper that she then shuffled. The children drew a card from each category to create the title of the stories.
Maitha then took the children through the various elements of the story, the characters, the setting, the plot, the climax and finally the ending. The session ended by the children reading their stories out loud.In the second day of the workshop which took place on Saturday, another group of children will be given the task of illustrating the covers of these stories. The final projects will then be shared on the social media accounts of the UAE Board on Books for Young People. This is not the first time for Maitha to take part in the fair. “At the book fair I usually do book readings and I do some crafts after that but I’ve never done an actual creative writing workshop. I think the kinds were having a great time - they were laughing and giggling. When kids are writing I want them to enjoy the process and I don’t want them to feel any restrictions,” said Maitha.
She added that the book fair is the perfect occasion for the children to be creative in writing or playing games. “People think that book fairs are just about reading books. It’s about unleashing your creativity there are so many wonderful things that you can do. It’s about writing, enjoying your time and sharing your love of books with people who are just like you,” she said.Maitha, who started writing books in 2008, comes from a business administration background but admits that she has had a passion for books since she was a child, citing Roald Dahl and Dr. Seuss as her favorite authors when she was young. “Those are the kinds of authors that made you want to read their books over and over again,” she said.Her interest in writing books however only happened when she became a mother. “I spend a lot of time reading stories for my kids and I find myself loving stories even more than they do. I noticed that my kids loved English books more than Arabic books and there wasn’t much content about the UAE or our culture in English or Arabic. As a business person, I identified the need in the market and decided I should start writing books,” said Maitha. She was also encouraged by her sister, who didn’t enjoy reading books as a child but told Maitha: “I did enjoy listening to you retelling them to us.”
Today, her five children, whose ages range from 11 months to 13 years, are her inspiration. Maitha transforms incidents that happen at home or things that they say into stories. “Something happens and they inspire me. I write the story, I sketch it then I have to have their consent. They are very harsh critics and they’re picky readers just like me. I even show them the illustrations, if it goes through them then it’ll go through other children,” she said, laughing.
When it comes to being a children’s author, Maitha says that it’s important to have a sense of humor and know what the children want to read without having the sole of intention of “wanting to teach them a lesson”. “With the kids you want to enlighten them, to open up their minds. You want them to be bold and creative because this is a challenging world. If you’re a children’s writer you must be able to do that. To allow children to unleash their creativity and the wonderful energy that they have,” said Maitha. Her advice for aspiring and budding children’s authors? “Don’t be afraid of yourself. You have great abilities and you just don’t know that. People will tell you no you can’t write a story, you don’t have the language or the qualifications but if you’re a wonderful storyteller then you can write a story. You’re the only one who can prove that,” said.