Media literacy for the youngest: Filter presented a children’s book on media literacy

The team of Filter, the national media literacy project of the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy, presented a children’s book on media literacy: “Nita. Hide, fakes of the world.”

In order to promote media literacy among the youngest audience, the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine announced an art contest for the creation of a media literacy book in spring 2021. The winner of the contest, BookChef publishing house, created the exciting story “Nita. Hide, fakes of the world.”

“Media literacy is something that directly affects a person’s critical thinking and information security. These are the skills that need to be developed from a young age. I hope that this book will be an additional contribution to the process of media literacy development, the fight against disinformation and the development of critical thinking,” Taras Shevchenko, Deputy Minister of Culture and Information Policy, noted.

During the presentation of the book, the author Katya Sil said that she was inspired to create the story by real situations, particularly by stories of her own daughter.

The book tells the story of a super-stubborn girl, Nita. Her biggest annoyance in life is mathematics, and what’s more, the upcoming test. Together with her classmate Oksen, she is desperately looking for a way to write a test without stress and comes across an interesting video on the Internet. In social media, she founds a well-known Tiktoker who advertises the “Rozduplia” pen: if you write a test with this pen, the brain performs everything at the highest score. The main character conducts her own investigation and finds out that “Rozduplia” is an ordinary fake and tries to tell her classmates about it as soon as possible.

The illustrator Vitaly Kyrychenko was also involved in the process of the book’s creation. He said that his own four children participated in the final approval of his works for the book.

The book was created for children aged 5-10 and is designed not only to develop critical thinking in children but also to warn parents about the issue of media education.

“The book contains not only a story interesting for the development of critical thinking, but also a useful QR link to the official Filter website, where in the Media Education section parents can find many materials on how to promote media literacy in a creative way,” — Valeria Kovtun, head of Filter project, noted.

The book can be found on Filter website in the Media Education block – for parents.