On September 29, 2024, we invited Ukrainian children and their parents to get acquainted with the latest Latvian children’s literature, spending a Sunday morning in a useful and enjoyable way. Together, we attended the Daugavpils Theatre performance “The Mystery of the Red House”. It is based on Andra Manfelde’s detective story “Is Mom Home?”.
Unusual plot twists, emotionally charged events, vivid characters and original artistic solutions captured the attention of every viewer and prompted reflection on their own family – how often do we truly appreciate our mother and her efforts?
The author of the book, Andra Manfelde, attended the performance and spoke highly of director Liena Šmukste’s production. After the performance, during the “I Want to Talk with You” language club session, children had the opportunity to get the author’s autograph, ask questions, share their opinions on what they had read and seen in the play, and compare it with Andra Manfelde’s thoughts and vision. The author revealed that many of the events depicted in the book and the play were drawn from her own family life, which she enhanced with fictional details to make the plot more dynamic and colourful.
Both during the theatre performance and the language club session, children and young people improved their Latvian language skills by learning new vocabulary and various functional phrases. This was facilitated by conversations with the author of the book as well as discussions among the participants. The conversation club members also completed a crossword puzzle, in which they had to identify words related to the play and the book’s plot, reinforcing the newly learned vocabulary and recalling the fun events they had just experienced.
The theatre visit and the “I Want to Talk with You” language club session took place as part of the project “Let’s Experience Latvia Together”, ID No. 2024.LV/2/UKR_KO/023, funded by the Latvian state budget under the programme “Cultural Orientation Courses and Inclusion Activities for Ukrainian Civilians”.
The project is financially supported by the Society Integration Fund from the allocated Latvian state budget resources.
Daugavpils University Association for Lifelong Learning, Culture, and Science Communication “Intellect Park” is responsible for the content of the project activities.
