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Tactus 2007
The Eighth European Tactile
Book Award
The Tactus Award aims to encourage
excellence and the sharing of ideas, resources and expertise in the creation of
tactile books for visually-impaired children.
It is also a way of providing much-needed, high quality tactile books
for distribution around the EU.
Would you like to have a go at designing
and making a tactile book especially for children with little or no sight?
Would you be happy to share your ideas?
Books entered in the competition will be examined and discussed by
sighted and visually-impaired experts from all over Europe. In this way ideas and inspiration are shared
amongst participating countries.
Your book might win! The lucky winners will
not only receive 600 euros and a trophy but will also see several hundred
copies of their books produced and distributed (at an affordable price made
possible by an EU subsidy) in English, French, Finnish, German, Dutch, Italian
and Polish editions. Photos of some of
the entries appear on the Tactus publicity poster each year - to inspire and
inform tactile book producers all over Europe (and beyond).
The competition is open to anyone in the
eight participating countries: UK, France, Italy, Belgium, Finland,
Netherlands, Poland and Germany.
Sixteen sighted and visually-impaired judges from these countries will
meet in Dijon in November 2007 to examine all the entries and decide on the
winning books. There are two
categories: one for any story books for
children and the other for books reflecting each country’s ‘cultural
heritage’. To enter this category you
will need to produce a tactile version of one of the chosen UK stories: The
Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter, Jack and the Beanstalk, or The
Story of the Three Little Pigs. (See below for more information on this.)
If you
are new to tactile books you may like to visit the Tactile Book Advancement
Group website at www.nctd.org.uk/tbag
for ideas and guidelines on making tactile books.
Entry in the competition is free. The
winning book will need to have lots of tactile interest and be robust enough to
withstand enthusiastic exploration. We
know how precious these books are; all entries (apart from the winners) will be
returned to their owners as soon as possible after the competition.
Alternatively, you may wish to donate your entry to the ClearVision tactile
book library so that we can lend it to visually impaired children all over the
UK.
The
closing date for entries is 1st October 2007.
Entry Information
1. Books entered in the competition
should be suitable for visually-impaired children (blind and partially-sighted)
between the ages of 3 and 12. There
will be two categories: the open category for any tactile story book and the
‘cultural heritage’ category. A prize
of 600 euros will be awarded to the creator of the winning book in each
category.
2. Books entered should be entirely your
own creation and therefore free of copyright (text and pictures) OR based on a
traditional folktale and therefore in the public domain, OR based on an
existing print book in which case you
will need to show that you have the publisher’s permission for a tactile
version to be produced and distributed in several countries (apart from The
Tale of Peter Rabbit – see below).
3. Any format for the illustrations is acceptable, including cut and
paste, sewn fabric, thermoform, embossing, etc. All books entered should be finished products rather than draft
versions.
4. Where possible, books entered should
have been successfully tried out by visually-impaired children or approved by
parents or professionals working in the field.
If this proves difficult to arrange please ask the UK contact for
advice.
5. Entrants may send in as many books as
they wish. Each book should be accom-panied by a completed entry form (see
below) and a disk with the complete text in Word or .txt.
6. Books entered in last year’s Tactus
competition cannot normally be entered again.
7. Please pay particular attention to the
following entry requirements:
Health and Safety: books
should be completely safe for young children to use and should not contain
anything which could present a danger to a young child.
Text: this should be in a legible font (at least 16pt)
AND in grade 1 or grade 2 braille. If you are not able to add the braille
yourself please consult the UK contact at least four weeks before the
closing date.
Binding: this should allow
the pages to open out flat.
Translations: the text should be easy to translate into
other languages. Alphabet books and
nursery rhymes, for example, are not suitable for translation.
Mass-production:
illustrations should not contain any objects which cannot be obtained in
quantity for mass-production.
Text books and topic books: should not be entered in this competition.
Entries which clearly do not fulfil these entry
requirements (eg text books, hazardous books or books which could not be
translated or reproduced) will be eliminated before judging takes place, as
will books which are too fragile to withstand repeated handling.
All entries (except the winning books) will
be posted back to their owners within one month of the results being announced.
The winning books will be produced for sale
in the languages of the participating countries.
The organisers can take no responsibility
for damage done to fragile books during the selection process and subsequent
display.
UK
entries should be sent to the UK contact: Marion Ripley, ClearVision, Linden
Lodge School, 61 Princes Way, London SW19 6JB. Tel: 020 8789 9575, e-mail: info@clearvisionproject.org. All
entries must reach ClearVision by 1st October 2007.
UK
Cultural Heritage Stories for
Typhlo
and Tactus Competition 2007
This year’s Tactus competition is
divided into two categories. Both
categories are for children aged from 3-12.
The first is an open category for
any tactile story books for children in this age group.
The second category is for tactile
versions of selected stories from the cultural heritage of each of the
participating countries. The three
chosen stories for the UK this year are The Story of the Three Little Pigs,
Jack and the Beanstalk and The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter. A tactile book entered in the cultural
heritage category should be based on one of these three stories.
Any fairly conventional re-telling of the two folk
stories will be acceptable but you may find that you need to shorten the
original stories quite considerably to suit this format. Proof of copyright clearance must accompany
your entry if you copy the text from a published book – so it is probably
easier to write your own version.
Full versions of the two folk
stories can be found at the following website: www.pitt.edu/~dash/folktexts.html.
The publishers of The Tale of
Peter Rabbit, Frederick Warne and Co, have kindly given their permission
for a specific shortened version of the story to be used (see below). This text should be used in its entirety and
not altered in any way. Tactile
illustrations can take any appropriate form.
The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter
Flopsy,
Mopsy, Cotton-tail and Peter lived underneath the root of a very big fir-tree.
Their
mother, Mrs Rabbit, was going out.
“Don’t go
into Mr McGregor’s garden!” she said.
But
naughty Peter ran to Mr McGregor’s garden and squeezed under the gate.
First he
ate some lettuces and french beans; then he ate some radishes.
Mr
McGregor saw Peter! He chased him around the garden, calling “Stop thief!”
Poor
Peter ran into a gooseberry net, and got caught by the large buttons on his
jacket.
Peter
wriggled away, but he left his jacket behind. Then he hid in a watering can.
Presently
Peter sneezed – “Kertyshoo!” Mr McGregor was after him in no time.
Poor
Peter was lost. He saw a white cat with a twitching tail, and crept past her.
Suddenly,
he heard the scr-r-ritch, scratch noise of a hoe. There was Mr McGregor, and
beyond him was the gate!
Peter ran
as fast as he could, slipped under the gate, and was safe at last.
His
mother put him to bed with a dose of camomile tea, but his sisters had bread
and milk and blackberries for supper.
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