BookHoof is a non-profit association created by Christine Evain and Spencer Hawkridge for the production and promotion of children’s literature.
Our OBjective
The inspiration for the BookHoof association comes from an event called the ‘Semaine D’Alliance’ which was run in conjunction with students from three institutions in Nantes – Centrale Nantes (an Engineering School), Audencia (a Business School) and ENSA (a School of Architecture) – who were set the task of producing a children’s story book across a three-day workshop. The success of this workshop and the joy the students took from it created the spirit and drive to create something which would permit this spirit and initiative to grow of its own volition.
Bookdash
We are greatly indebted to ‘Book Dash’ who provided us with the model with which to organize our first BookHoof workshop in March 2018.
The Book Dash model is about bringing together groups of people with the shared goal of writing, illustrating, formatting and editing a storybook in a 12-hour, one day workshop. At the end of the 12 hours, each small group should have produced a storybook which is ready to be uploaded onto an open-source platform where it is available free of charge for anyone to access and read.
In addition, the driving motivation for the Book Dash organisers was to provide children’s literature to the many children in South Africa who do not have access to books and to this end, very cheap print runs are financed by Book Dash and its partners and the books are subsequently distributed free of charge to children from deprived backgrounds. It is the aim of BookHoof to follow this model in time.
bookhoof reading committee
BookHoof workshops have already produced around 50 books, but this is not the end of the story! Before the association is able to upload the books on to the BookHoof.org website it is imperative that the books are proof-read and corrected, uniformly formatted, bear the BookHoof logo and partner logos and have an ISBN number. Only when they are in a complete and publishable condition can books be uploaded to ensure their literary value and also so they may be categorised according to the age range they are targeted at.
To this end, BookHoof organises Reading Committees where a group of the great and the good, the literate and the willing sit down in a relaxed and convivial atmosphere and carry out this meticulous, time-consuming, but very necessary work. This will ensure the consistency and quality of all the books published in BookHoof’s name. We would therefore like to thank Christine Evain, Elisabeth Richard, Spencer Hawkridge, Francoise Bourvon, Vivien Boudou, Elaine Rees, Marie-Francoise Narcy-Combes, Ravish Domun, Jean-Paul Narcy-Combes, Yudhisteer Chintaram, Bernard Sellin, Sarah Lemrabet, Christine Bertail, Pascale Lesage, Catrin Bellay, Simon Carolan, Claire Lemascon and Thomas Becker.