What does it take to print more than half a million children’s books? Last week, we invited a few partners to see for themselves, in a behind-the-scenes visit to the printers Tandym Print.

As Book Dash celebrates our 10^th anniversary, we’re currently printing a whopping 609,000 books across 11 South African languages. This will take the total number of Book Dash books in the world to well over 4 million. It’s our biggest print run yet, and we suspect it to be the largest-ever print run of children’s storybooks in South Africa. Importantly, it’s coming at a time when young children need books in their homes more than ever. The books are destined for 120 partner organisations across the country, to be distributed through programmes to children to keep and own. Funding comes from donor partners looking to improve systems for early development and literacy levels at scale.

Why is this such a big deal? Having books at home improves children’s early literacy skills, setting them up for success in all subjects. The book acts as a tool to support the parent-child relationship and for play-based learning. The earlier we start, the greater the gains so Book Dash advocates for book ownership from birth. 

Yet in South Africa, two out of three homes with young children do not have a single children’s picture book, according to the 2023 National Reading Barometer. In the past, cost and availability have limited our ability to get all children owning books, but with Book Dash’s work to optimise for efficiencies in key publishing and distribution processes, that isn’t the case anymore.

Book Dash was born and designed with scale in mind. In 2014, its founders used their publishing expertise to change the landscape of access to books in homes, for all preschool children. During the tour of the printers, we shared how careful decision-making at each step of the publishing, printing and distribution processes makes it possible to drive down costs and get more books to children. The Book Dash model reduces the cost of producing quality, local children’s books by up to 80%. For this print run, the books are just R15. 

Did you know?

• • We assess and print to the exact needs of our partners (in terms of languages and number of children). The bulk of the books go directly from printer to partner. This drastically limits wastage and reduces costs and energy used in packaging, warehousing and logistics.

• • We assess and print to the exact needs of our partners (in terms of languages and number of children). The bulk of the books go directly from printer to partner. This drastically limits wastage and reduces costs and energy used in packaging, warehousing and logistics.

• • Book Dash books are printed at a 15x15cm format. Not only do these fit perfectly into tiny hands, but this size suits commonly-available paper sizes and minimises paper waste.

• • Printers overprint to insure against errors. In agreement with Book Dash, additional copies (called ‘overs’) are first offered to factory staff for their children. The rest are passed on to Book Dash to distribute. A run of this size could result in thousands of additional books into the hands of children.

• • It takes five weeks of active production to pull off such a big printing job. Processes start with signed-off proofs and move to plate-making, printing, folding, stitching, trimming and packing per order. The team at Tandym Print is calling May “Book Dash month!”

As we kicked off the tour, we took a moment to reflect on the fact that there are around 1.2 million children born each year in South Africa. The current print run alone represents enough books to give half of the children born in 2024 a book of their own.

Even 4 million books isn’t yet enough to fix the unequal access to books for preschool children – but it’s a significant start and a real effort to build literacy from the ground up. 

Now that we’ve developed a catalogue of 200 local titles, worked out the logistics of printing and distributing half a million books to children responsibly, and know the research supports this work, we’re ready to scale up to reach every child in South Africa. 

Keen to join us in tackling literacy challenges? Want to add books for all children in your programmes? Give us a shout!