About A Rainbow For Amala

Find out more about how and why we made the interactive story book, A Rainbow for Amala, and how to read and play it. See images from the making of the book, and see the credits for everyone who worked on it.

About A Rainbow For Amala

How Does It Work?

A Rainbow for Amala is a story book with a difference!

It’s a story told through reading (like a normal book!) but also through animated videos, games and puzzles that you will need to solve.

Scan the QR codes you find as you read the book to dive inside the story and bring it to life.

To read and play A Rainbow for Amala, you will need:

  • A copy of the book
  • A smartphone or tablet
  • A connection to the internet

It’s more fun to read the book together with others in your family. So, as well as borrowing their phone, how about getting the grown up whose phone you’ve borrowed to read along with you?

Getting technical…

Two girls are playing the book together

To access the digital game, video and puzzle content you will need to scan the QR codes that appear throughout the book.

The easiest way to do this is to open the camera app on your phone or tablet and point the camera at the QR code. A web link will pop up: tap the link that pops up, and you will be taken straight to the digital content.

Most modern smartphones and tablets now have a QR code reader built into their camera app. In some cases it may be necessary to download a standalone QR scanner app which can be used in a similar way. Some devices that run the Android operating system require you to use Google Lens to scan QR codes.

You will need an internet connection (wifi or mobile data) to load the games and puzzles and to stream the short animated videos.

The in-built speaker of your phone or tablet can be used to listen to audio elements.

Why We Made A Rainbow For Amala

A group of five adults sitting on logs in a community garden. They are holding copies of the book A Rainbow for Amala.

Sudha, John and Katie - who made the book and games - think that talking about ‘the climate emergency’ should be part of the everyday conversation at home with friends and family.

It’s weird not to talk about it, because climate change threatens everyone’s future - and that can make people really anxious - especially kids and young people. We also think there are things that everyone can do - like growing your own food, or community practices that can give us all more hope.

Talking about things together makes those feelings easier for everyone to deal with, and that makes it easier for all of us to take action.

We came up with the idea of a tool to help us talk about the climate emergency, and a way of making those conversations fun.

There are voices of people we often don’t get to hear in climate movement in the UK – like global majority kids, and people with lived experience of climate impacts. We think there’s value in their lived experiences as they help us understand what is really happening, right here and now.

We collaborated with local school children to help develop the characters. We wanted to know how they talk and what their lives are like, so we could create an authentic representation.

Two young people read a book together A teenager reading and interacting with her smartphone A young person with shoulder length hair and glasses is looking intently at a mobile phone held by an adult. Two young people with long braids are reading books together. An adult reads the book with a young person A young person with rainbow face paint is reading a book on sunlit grass. A gathering of people in a grassy clearing in a woodland. There is a small gazebo. A young person is looking at a game on a mobile phone A young person is using her phone over an open book. An adult in sunglasses laughts as she reads a book to a young person.
Images from one of our play testing events at a Birminghman nature reserve, Summer 2024

Credits

A Rainbow for Amala

by Sudha Bhuchar, Katie Day and John Sear for The Other Way Works.

Inspired by and created with input from Year 6 children from Regents Park Community Primary School, Small Heath, Birmingham.

Cast

Voice of Nafeesa — Zarah Hoq

Voice of Karim — Zakariah Ouidah

Voice of Amala — Hanaan Hussein

Voice of Nani Fatima — Bharti Patel

Voice of Murad — Vimal Korpal

Voice of Miss Anwar — Rochi Rampal

Voice of the News Reader — Sudha Bhuchar

Creative Team

Illustrator — Zoya Ahmed

Animator — Zuhair Mehrali

Sound Designer — Duncan Grimley

Typesetter — Adam York Gregory

Graphic Designer — Niels Dielen

Engagement Facilitator — Fateha Begum

Writer — Sudha Bhuchar

Game Designer & Software Developer — John Sear

Producer — Rachael Burton

Creative Director — Katie Day

Supported by:

Supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England. Also funded by the Foyle Foundation, the Sir Barry Jackson Trust, and the Sir Robert McAlpine Strong Foundations Fund.

Our thanks to all those who helped along the way:

The Trustees of The Other Way Works for all their support, Rosie Gunn for administration, Carl Miller for dramaturgical support, Catherine O’Flynn for editorial notes, Jacky Tivers and Ruth Donnelly for proofreading, Clare Hewitt for photo documentation, Jonathan Bartley for video documentation, BOM for development space, Regents Park Community Primary School - especially Ms Hazelwood and Ms Folbigg, Jenny Moore at How Brave is the Wren, Tricia Coleman, Jim Rogers, Alex Kapila, Tim Wright, Peter Wynne-Willson, Daiyan Ahmed, a Thrive Grant from ArtsConnect, Birmingham Hippodrome, Black Country Touring, Growing Up Green Festival, Bear Books, CAP Centre Smethwick, Possible, ecobirmingham, The Springfield Project Sparkhill, Now Play This, the Donnelly family, Ed, Vashti, Ariadne, Anja, Jenson and Luna for playtesting, and our families for all their support.