Across Ethiopia, people express their pain, celebrate their joy and build bridges from heart to heart through movement to music. Dance, the language that humans everywhere speak, connects us across cultures and conflicts, throughout time and turmoil. Dance is power, it is beauty, it connects us to nature and to each other. Celebrate the ultimate human art form in our bilingual early reader.
Open Hearts Big Dreams Ready Set Go (OHBD-RSG) Books were created to help increase the literacy rate in Ethiopia through giving readers books with stories in their heart languages, full of colorful illustrations with Ethiopian settings and details. Profits from book sales are used to create, print, and distribute more OHBD-RSG books to kids in Ethiopia, Africa’s second most populous country. Ethiopia’s population has a high percentage of children ages 0-14. Only a small percentage attend pre-school or kindergarten, and the adult literacy rate is around 50%.
Some of our books are based on wise Ethiopian sayings that often rhyme in Amharic. If an adult says the first half, many children can chant the second half. Sometimes the meaning of these sayings is clear. Sometimes it has to be puzzled out and argued over. But sayings and idioms and proverbs help people express truths and beliefs in unusual ways. Other books are based on STEAM topics, cooking, colors, counting and more.
The Language of Dance: A Universal Bridge in English and Amharic 'የዳንስ ቋንቋ'
Melaku Belay (Author), Ready Set Go Books (Author), Ellenore Angelidis (Editor), Jane Kurtz(Editor), Teklemarian Zewde (Illustrator), Nahsoenay Negussie (Illustrator), Eyayu Genet (Illustrator), Alex Regassa (Illustrator), Lake Oswego Festival of Arts (Illustrator), Nardos Debebe (Translator)