Micropublishing using KidsPublish app

Written By Victoria Ryle

Why We Need Diverse Books

Two pages of R’s book unedited – created using KidsPublish app

Micropublishing is the term I use to describe the small-scale activity of instant publishing – creating a small book in situ. The book is created out of one or two sheets of paper that can be printed or photocopied before being folded up into small books for immediate sharing with family and friends. Micropublishing is suited to small print runs, typically less than 10 copies.

I offer an example of micropublishing using the KidsPublish app: a young artist R, aged seven visits with her artist parents. She asks to use her iPad and I take an opportunity to introduce her to the KidsPublish app, the recently upgraded version of WePublish, a micropublishing app for iPad I developed in 2014 for Kids’ Own Publishing. This is a hybrid app for creating digital mini-books that once printed out, folded are transformed into a ‘real’ mini-book or zine for sharing with friends and family.

R makes her book, a confident artist who grasps how to use the app swiftly. She works largely independently. I note that she begins each page by creating the image, before adding words. She uses a strategy of re-reading her story from the very beginning before starting each new page.  A small number of key words are misspelt, but these do not interrupt her reading – she is clear what she has written. A couple of times she asks me for a prompt but takes very little prompting before a new idea forms in her head and she is off again. When her book is complete, I show her how to print it out and fold it up. She reads it and shares it with her parents who communicate pleasure and pride in what she has accomplished. We end by printing a further two copies before they leave. Afterwards, I re-read her book: a delightful example from an imaginative child with strong visual competence and sophisticated spatial awareness. However, I wondered how the book might be received by her teacher, possibly be distracted by misspellings that makes it hard for anyone other than the writer to read accurately and fluently.

One feature of the KidsPublish app allows users to duplicate a book in the library section. This feature of the app was developed to encourage books in home languages and support plurilingual learners, but equally it may be applied to other ends. Here, I duplicated R’s book and taking the role of publisher and editor, changed just 14 letters, rendering it ‘correctly’ spelt. What questions does my intervention raise? Firstly, how might R feel about the corrections? Does such an act detract from her autonomy, or convey a message that her independent work is lacking? Or is it possible by presenting the two texts side by side that a facilitating adult can validate her impressive imagination, support her agency, while offering a secure space for her to leverage her achievement into more confident spelling skills? I did not have the opportunity to enquire further on this occasion, but it sowed a seed in my mind for a rich future inquiry.

 
Victoria Ryle
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