How does anyone learn to write a good book, in a country where most people have never read a good book? It's a gradual process, but we've found it happening faster than we had hoped.

Good writers usually have 3 things in common:
  * They read a lot.
  * They write a lot.
  * They get helpful feedback about their writing – from a teacher, a blunt-tongued spouse, a writers' group, or friends and readers.

On the last two points, we provide time and encouragement for our staff to write. Periodically, they meet and discuss one another's work.

As for the first point and most crucial point: We're simply trying to publish as many books as we can, from a wide variety of sources, reflecting a great range of subject matter and writing styles. More than anything else, we believe that increased reading material will help create a generation of Lao writers. Here are some of our approaches for creating that variety of books.

Inspiration from Dr. Seuss. We look for books that have been popular in other countries, then ask: What made this book successful? We apply that underlying idea to Lao subjects and culture. For our goal to "Make literacy fun!" our #1 inspiraton has been the all-time master, Dr. Seuss. For example:

Green Eggs and Ham. Dr. Seuss used only 50 different words, but with lively repetition, as each scene built on the one before, he built those 50 words into a full story. Link, Yuphin, and Vannaled chose a question that in Laos might seem equally preposterous: "Do you like to read?" and wrote I Am Geum

To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street. In one the earliest Dr. Seuss books, a boy sees a broken-down wagon and horse, but in his imagination, they grow into something more splendid. In Laos, a day-dreaming boy is more likely to see a buffalo. That led to New, Improved Buffalo.

Hop on Pop. The brief sentences in this book aren't poems in a traditional sense, but they include words that rhyme; that creates a humorous effect. Several of our books use this idea, including Jong Jong Jong! and Polar Bear Visits Laos.

Inspiration from other books. While Dr. Seuss earned a section of his own, many other books have provided inspiration to us. They include:

Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? Colorful animals, cut from paper, and repetitive, easy-to-read rhymes were the essence of this classic by Bill Martin and Eric Carle's. Tha Tao used it as a model for a book with Lao animals, and a Lao farmer: Do You Want to See?.

Curious George. A little monkey goes to the city, and finds it both exciting and bewildering. Years ago, when I talked with young people in villages just a 90-minute drive from Bangkok, which they had never visited, they had the same mixed feelings about the big city. Would it be fun and exciting? Or scary and dangerous? That gave rise to Bangkok Bob, in which a monkey finds you for himself what the city is like.

Notes: Using this approach, we've produced a range of original and popular children's picture books. The key is to clearly identify what made the original book successful. Once that is done, motivated young people with little writing experience have produced books that children love. We'd like to apply the "inspiration" approach to some books with more text, such as the "Magic Treehouse" series. This will require more guidance from an experienced writers.

Translation and adaptation of public-domain works. If a book is still popular a century after it appeared, there's a reason for that. Furthermore, it's out of copyright. We've issued Lao editions of several such books.

Dr. Dolittle. The first two books in this series have passed into public domain. The first one is largely set in Africa. While the author, Hugh Lofting, was quite progressive in comparison to most westerners of his era, we did adapt one chapter: The African prince, instead of wanting to be white, simply wants a crown. Too many people in this part of the world have already ruined their skin by trying to bleach it. Apart from that, the story holds up beautifully. The second Dolittle book was much longer, and we cut out some scenes in the first half, which could become a third book one day. Both books were delightfully illustrated by a Chittakone, a local high school student: Take a look at The Story of Dr. Dolittle and Dr. Dolittle and the Floating Island.

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. One problem with reprinting public-domain books is that our list becomes disproportionately heavy with western characters, themes, and images. While we want readers here to see a wide range of books, we also want children, especially, to read about characters they can identify with. So in this classic, we reset the beginning and end in Luang Namtha, Laos, instead of Kansas, USA. Kham is swept away in a flood. After she reaches Oz, not much changes except that she carries sticky rice instead of bread in her basket. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

Sherlock Holmes. The world's most popular detective stories are now published in Lao, in bilingual editions with Lao and English side by side. For the first time, college students learning English can practice their skills by reading something truly interesting, instead of an imaginary conversation at airport customs. For the first book (3 stories), we greatly simplified the English. Each successive collection is also simplified, but to slightly more advanced level. The Red-Headed Club, and other stories and The Man Who Disappeared

Notes: We've also published The Jungle Boy (the first story in Kipling's Jungle Book), and The Bag of Smiles (selected stories from Why the Chimes Rang). Most of these books can be found at Gutenberg.org. Google also scans many out-of-print books and makes them available as PDF documents, which cannot be edited.

Folktales.

Lao folktales. Our most popular stories with rural children, and often with adults, are traditional Lao stories, particularly stories they've already heard. Our staff writes the stories they know. They also record and transcribe stories told by village elders to tells stories. From this have come such books as The Cat that Meditated, The Grasshopper War, Aijethai, and the current #1 favorite, Phiiyamoi, which ends with a witch devouring the intestines of the unfortunate hero. Each of Laos's 49 ethnic minorities has its own stories and traditions, and we're collecting and publishing as many of those as we can. The first, from the Kmhmu' group, will be The Hunter Who Meditated.

Proverbs. For centuries, proverbs have served to pass wisdom from one generation to the next. Putting them into book form gives them one more opportunity to be remembered. The Lao Proverbs Coloring Book included a line-drawing to illustrate each proverb, and a brief explanation for those that might be unclear to some readers. For Proverbs of Laos, we asked children to write down their favorite, then illustrate it and briefly explain it. Both books have been popular.

Regional stories. Stories from neighboring countries will offer some new plots, in settings that readers can understand. Our first such collection is now in preparation. This book will also give some interesting facts and background about each neighboring country, as well as a story.

World folktales. Our first collection from outside Asia came from Africa: The Adventures of Anansi, followed by International Folktales. Most children seem to start with the more familiar Lao stories, then graduate to these.

Notes: Gutenberg.org and Google, mentioned above, have many old story collections that are out of copyright. There are many other websites with story collections. Some carry a copyright, but in the case of traditional stories, this applies only to that author's telling of the story. The storyline itself cannot be copyrighted, though that won't keep people from trying.

Alphabet books. Lao is phonetic. Once you've learnd the alphabet – or, actually, alphabets, since consonants and vowels are considered two independent sequences – you can read. You'll read very slowly, but then it's just a matter of practice, and having books that make you want to practice. ("Books that make literacy fun!" – remember? And it's more fun if there are several alphabet books to practice with.) Here are some approaches we've used:

Frog, Alligator, Buffalo There were already alphabet books in Lao. There is an official word for each Lao consonant, and every one I ever saw used those official words, and only those words, to illustrate the letter: Chicken, Egg, Buffalo. For his first book, Khamla sometimes used the official word, sometimes a different one, and wrote a humorous 2-line rhyme about it. It's now entering its third edition.

No Chickens, No Eggs This alphabet book quite explicitly did not use the official chicken, egg, and buffalo. Thongkham plowed through a dozen CD's of computer clip-art. For each Lao consonant, he found 8 or 9 pictures illustrating words that began with that letter. After many requests, we added the English equivalent below the Lao, so the book helps both children learning Lao, and older students learning English. A second book, Ant, Knife, Tied Up took the same approach for Lao vowels.

Jong Jong Jong! Lao is tonal. The same letters, and sounds, have a different meaning if pronounced with a different tone. To introduce the most common tone symbols, we got our database to generate a list with sets of words that were spelled the same except for the tone. Then our talented Chittakone found ways to combine two or three words from a set into one sentence, and illustrated it. Now, by reading the sentence and looking at the picture, children who have learned the alphabet can see the effect of the tone mark.

Notes: There are, of course, countless alphabet books from which to draw inspiration. Some, like Khamla's Frog, Alligator, Buffalo, are best for a teacher or parent reading to a child. Others will allow a child or adult to learn and practice alone.

Health. In my experience, few things would do more to improve quality of life in a country such as Laos than improved health, including nutrition and sanitation. Doctors, clinics, and hospitals are part of this, but simply having more knowledge and understanding of these issues would make a great difference, at a relatively low cost. I wish a large health organization would create booklets providing that information, in a useful, entertaining way, some suitable for children, some for adults, and make them freely available for anyone to translate, reprint, and publish.

That hasn't happened, but there's something almost as good: Books about health and related issues from The Hesperian Foundation. Their book Where There Is No Doctor is a classic, and deservedly so. Other Hesperian books can be printed or translated at no charge on a not-for-profit basis; their website has details. Our book Women's Health is based on their work, and we expect to do more.

Dinosaurs. If you want to get kids excited about reading, there's no such thing as too many dinosaur books. If you've ever been eight years old, you know that at a certain age, many children get absorbed in one subject and want to learn all they can about it. For readers of all ages, many subjects get more interesting as you explore them in more depth. We've chosen dinosaurs as a subject to repeatly return to. Ancient civilizations is another.

There's plenty of information available from which a moderately experienced writer can prepare an interesting book on this subject. Dover Publications has a wealth of good picture books on every imaginable subject, and you can use, without charge, up to 10 of the colorful paintings from their Dinosaur CD-ROM and Book to accompany whatever you write.

Out-of-print books previously published in Laos. Some beautiful and well-written books have been produced in Laos in the past, often by an NGO which received funding for the book, but had no way to get it widely distributed. Finding these, and tracking down the rights-holder, can be a challenge, but it's worth keeping your eyes open. One of my favorite books, The Monk and the Trees, came to us this way.

Wikipedia and public-domain art. Wikipedia is a wonderful source of photographs and art. I quickly put together Spectacular! just by browsing the Featured Pictures section. Other Wikipedia photos helped with Homes Around the World. Note that while there's no charge to use material from Wikipedia, there are sometimes restrictions and requirements, which you should understand.

As for content: Information from Wikipedia is more accurate than you might expect for an encyclopedia where anybody can write an entry, but you should still double-check it. Last time I looked, it said 98% of the Lao population was Buddhist. (But any source should be double-checked; one reliable source says camels can swim, and another that says they cannot. The more interesting question then is, who ever knew that so many people cared?)

There are many other good sources of free art. Most photographs taken by U.S. government employees, as part of their work, are public domain. We used NASA's stunning pictures of planets, galaxies, and exploding nebula in What's in the Sky?.