If you head to the World Languages section of the Faye G. Allen Children’s Center in the Central Library, you’ll see something new: a selection of colorful Hawaiian-language picture books.
The Library recently added our first Hawaiian-language books to our collections, including 58 unique titles and 107 copies.
It started with a surprise donation. Last summer, 12 Hawaiian-language children’s titles were donated to the Magnolia Branch. The Library often doesn’t accept book donations, since they would need to meet the selection criteria in our collections development plan. But after looking into the titles, our selection librarians realized this was a unusual opportunity to add children’s titles in a language that represents a vibrant cultural community in Seattle.
The donated titles were all published by the University of Hawaii at Hilo, College of Hawaiian Languages. After researching the publisher, the Library decided to purchase a number of other children’s books in Hawaiian by the same publisher.
We were able to expedite the cataloguing of the new titles because one of our librarian-cataloguers has been studying the Hawaiian language. (Typically, we purchase world language titles through specialized vendors that provide the cataloguing along with the titles.) This helped get the books on our shelves more quickly.
The children’s books explore a range of themes, from the universal to the culturally specific. They tell stories about birthday celebrations, preparing for the first day of school, how to make a lei haku, Hawaiian terms for counting, show-and-tell day and more.
Our librarians note that it’s especially important to have children’s titles in non-English languages because many families use reading and books as a way to help their children stay connected to their culture.
The original 12 copies donated to the Library are shelved at the Magnolia Branch, while the other Hawaiian-language books are located at the Children’s Center at the Central Library. Patrons can browse titles at each location, or explore and place holds on the titles in the Library’s online catalogue.
The Library also curates children’s books about the language and culture of Pacific Islanders. Find examples in this booklist curated by a children’s librarian.
In recent years, the Library has also added a selection of adult books and children’s books in Ukrainian, as well as a small selection of children’s books that are bilingual in Dari/English, and Pashto/English, responding to requests from patrons who speak and read in those languages. The Library actively collects books in 18 languages as part of its World Language Collections. Books in Chinese, Japanese and Spanish are the highest circulating of the Library’s World Languages collections.
– Elisa M., Communications
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