How we created a book of children’s quotes about the war, which the world’s leading publishing house – Poglyady was interested in

Have you noticed how often we use the word “for the first time” lately? For the first time, Ukrainians won an Oscar, for the first time – the Nobel Prize, for the first time – the Pulitzer Prize. Regardless of Russia’s war against Ukraine, shelling of civilians, and insane economic pressure, Ukrainians continue to amaze and reach new heights.

The other day we again did something “for the first time” for Ukraine. We created and published a book that will be translated and published by one of the five main English-language publishing houses in the world. We are the Ukrainian charitable foundation “Voices of Children”. The publisher is the American HarperCollins. We cannot divulge the numbers, but according to our information, this is perhaps the largest agreement with a Ukrainian author in modern Ukrainian history.

Fantastic right? I will tell you a little about our path.

How we collected children’s voices

The idea came to me when I found out that my friend Olya Vovk writes down funny quotes of her younger sister. This was before the full-scale war. Then I thought for the first time: “Why not collect funny and strange quotes of Ukrainian children in one book?”. But then Russia threw all its troops into Ukraine and we changed our mind.

Now that was supposed to be the children of war quotes. We asked parents to send us their children’s expressions, one way or another related to the war. Within a few weeks, we received hundreds and hundreds of quotes.

Despite the war, we didn’t want all the quotes to be tragic, depressing, depressing. It was supposed to be about power. About what our children experience, feel and think, and what helps them to remain stable, to continue dreaming. In the words of the children themselves, who are experiencing the war, this book speaks about what it is like: to live and understand danger, changing circumstances, the fragility of reality and at the same time remain a child.

In this book, we wanted to emphasize the continuation of childhood in spite of everything. After all, childhood cannot be put on hold because of war. Life goes on, there is hope – and that’s what keeps us all going.

It is not for nothing that, despite many discussions and arguments, we chose a photo of a child sticking out its tongue for the cover of the book. This photo was taken by our friend, journalist and photographer Fermin Torrano in the early days of the war. He photographed a child in Lviv, on an evacuation bus to Poland. She is in abnormal circumstances, but even under such conditions she keeps her light and smiles.

How an idea turned into a book

It was a big challenge for us. We never published a book. We are a charitable foundation whose direct purpose is to provide psychological, psychosocial and humanitarian assistance. But we believed that we could create a book.

We asked our friends a lot of questions, went to many bookstores to look, flip through, touch dozens of books and find the format and our own vision of our future book. We were looking for our own in a sea of ​​strangers.

Our goal was not to show how bad things are and “to shed a tear”. The quality of the book, the value of the book and the meaning of the book were important to us. Olena Rozvadovska, the head of the board of Voices of Children, edited the book in such a way that the reader, turning the last page, remains with faith in good, with hope for the best and with the desire to fight and not give up. After all, as nine-year-old Zhenya (one of the heroes of the book) says, “We are Ukrainians, we will not give up.”

In the end, the book included about 100 quotes from children. And then we asked famous artists (Nikita Titov, Serhii Maidukov, Miriam Nayem) and stars (Jamala, Svyatoslav Vakarchuk) to draw a picture for each quote. The book was published in two languages ​​- Ukrainian and English, because from the beginning we wanted it to be read abroad first of all, so that the voices of Ukrainian children could be heard far beyond the borders of Ukraine.

How the book crossed borders

We believed that every politician, diplomat, government official, activist – every person in the world should hear the words of our children. Therefore, we carried the book everywhere we could and made an exhibition of drawings and quotes from the book. We were at the OSCE, the UN, at the so-called “legal Ramstein”, where prosecutors from all over the world gathered, at a meeting of ombudsmen from all over the world, etc.

In the European Parliament, we read a letter from a teenager from the occupation, which was included in the foreword of the book. In this letter, he calls on adults to listen to the child’s opinion, because his parents did not hear his plea to leave the city to the territory controlled by Ukraine and remained in the occupation.

Among those to whom we presented the book were former British Prime Minister David Cameron, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court Karim Khan (the same one who issued the warrant for Putin’s arrest), the ministers of Austria, the Netherlands, and Iceland.

And finally: how one of the world’s leading publishing houses became interested in the book

But it was not only about giving the children’s voices an opportunity to be heard. We believed that thanks to the book we would be able to raise funds to help Ukrainian children. The people around me only laughed at this, saying that there were not enough chances, books rarely bring money.

Victoria Ma of OVO Literary Agency took the book to the London Book Fair last April, two months after the book was published. And it was there that she first heard about HarperCollins’ interest in publishing a book. What followed were the longest negotiations for us, which took more than half a year.

Now part of the funds from the sale of each copy will be directed to psychological assistance for Ukrainian children with war experience. What’s more, the publishing house will leave a QR code in the book for a direct donation to “Voices of Children” for psychological assistance to children of Ukraine.

ANDmericans plan to publish the book all over the world, in different languages. But it was fundamental for us to exclude Russian and Belarusian languages ​​from this list. And also to leave behind us the opportunity to use the book for advocacy in the world.

The book is expected to be released in the US on October 8. What’s next?

Next, we are already thinking about a new book. Maybe it will be new quotes, and maybe stories. We dont know. But we know for sure that children are witnesses of today’s events, have their own thoughts and observations about the war. It is important for us to record this time in their thoughts and quotes so as not to forget the price of Ukraine’s happy future.

Azad Safarov, co-founder of the “Voices of Children” charitable foundation, especially for UP. Life

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