TEHRAN-A book exhibition titled “Rainbow,” showcasing works of the well-known Iranian writer Jabbar Baghcheban as well as other children’s books in Persian and other languages is underway at the Reference Library of the Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults (IIDCYA) in Tehran.

Jabbar Asgarzadeh, famously known as Jabbar Baghcheban, is known as the founder of the first Iranian kindergarten in Marand and the country’s first deaf school in Tabriz. He was also the inventor of Persian cued speech, Mehr reported.

He was born in Urmia, West Azarbaijan Province. He left school as a child due to financial problems and worked in architecture and confectionery with his father, but because he loved writing, at the same time, he wrote for satirical magazines and gradually became the editor of a magazine.

The first kindergarten he established was called “Baghche-ye Atfal” in Persian, meaning “Children's Garden”. He used to say that if a primary and secondary school teacher is called a "teacher", the kindergarten teacher is a kind of guardian of flowers, so he is a gardener, and he named himself Baghcheban.

Baghcheban was critical of the education system in Iran and believed that new methods should be used. He considered one of the reasons for the low quality of literacy to be the lack of preparation for pre-school and said that for proper education, one should use different methods of playing, role play, poetry, song, and storytelling.

He founded a school for the deaf in 1924. In 1928 he wrote the first Iranian children's book in Persian tilted “Snowman Daddy”.

Besides writing for children, he has works for adults as well. The translation of Khayyam's quatrains into the local Azeri language is unique among his works The Azeri translation is also poetic as the original quatrain, which was unprecedented at his time.

After a lifetime of efforts to promote Iranian culture and language, Baghcheban passed away in 1966, at the age of 81.

Th “Rainbow” exhibition will be running until October 23 at the Reference Library of the IIDCYA, located at No. 24, Khaled Eslamboli St., Beheshti St.

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