IN-BOOK: BOOKS THAT INCLUDE

Bruno is seven years old and has difficulty communicating. Things have become more complicated since he started attending school and he was isolated from his classmates. One day; however, the teacher Marta brought a special book to Bruno. It’s a book with beautiful colored images and many symbols that accompany the words of the text. It tells the adventures of Mara, the girl with butterfly ears. Together with the teacher Bruno learns to read: sitting nearby, following the symbols with the finger, loudly repeating their meaning and together discovering enchanted places and fantastic characters. Today Bruno has become an avid reader, but that's not all. That special book has inspired his curious classmates who have started competing to be able to read with Bruno.

The in-books

The special book that Bruno was reading is an in-book, an illustrated book with texts completely translated into symbols. The in-books were born to make the reading accessible to all and are also useful for those who don’t have particular problems, because they stimulate reading independently.
The creation of type of books is a valid support both for families and for educational institutions, because it uses language tools that everyone can use. In this way these children have the opportunity to read and improve and not be excluded. The in-books are instruments used to be together, for in-tegration and in-clusion.

The Children's Library of Foligno and the in-book section

In 2014, starting from the idea that everyone has the right to read, a section dedicated to in-books was created in the Foligno Children's Library. Unique throughout the Umbria region, the in-book section was created thanks to the contribution of UMBRAGROUP , la Gomena ONLUS and Kiwanis Club Foligno.

All the books in the in-book section are supervised by the Centre of Alternative Augmentative Communication of Milan and Verdello (CSCA), one of the few centers in Italy that deals with this special form of communication (CAA) and training for operators and the families.

The link with the Children's Library is special. It was 2010 when Valter Baldaccini enthusiastically sustained the project of the Municipality of Foligno to create a library that was dedicated to children and adolescents. Thanks to the contribution of UMBRAGROUP and The Boeing Company,  in a few months the project took shape and is still today an excellence of our territory.

The project to relaunch the in-book section of the Children’s Library

After a few years of activity, the in-book section needs new energy. This is the motivation that has spurred us, together with the Kiwanis Club of Foligno, to offer our support to revive this section of the Library, which can be really useful to many families in need who still do not know about it. 

With this goal, the conference Everyone’s Library. Inbooks as an Instrument of Inclusion was organized. The conference was held in the Palazzo Trinci Conference Room, in the historic center of Foligno, on Saturday November 24, 2018 (click here for the programme).

Over 200 people, including teachers, volunteers, families, educators, and spectators took part in the initiative. Given the enormous interest it generated, the speaker’s materials were made available to everyone (you can find them here).

A free, limited access training course dedicated to Augmentative Communication and Inbooks has been organized for Saturday February 16, 2019 at the Foligno Children’s Library.  It is a day that will allow you to learn about different aspects of the CAA and do some practical exercises on the symbol letters and choosing inbooks
(here are all the details about the day and how to participate). 

This project also calls for filling the shelves of the children’s Library with new in books and to do so we need everyone’s support! We would like to buy new ones from among the ones that have already been published and have new ones translated. 

You can help us buy or make an in-book! Thanks to your support, many children like Bruno won't feel alone and they can discover the richness of reading.

Reading is a right for everyone, please DONATE NOW!

• 9 euros to purchase the paper and necessary material for printing
• 15 euros to purchase a new book in symbols already published
• 25 euros for printing and binding
• 40 euros to help our translator Roberta. She transforms words into symbols.
• 100 euros for the supervision and graphic layout of the book

Thank you so much for your help!

Thanks to Foligno Children's Library and Rossana, the librarian, for the photos.