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Book Launch – Samira’s Awful Lunch and Samira Goes Shopping

Manisha Chaudhry, Head of content development- Pratham Books, writes about the book launch of our two new titles.

On Sept, 5, 2009, Samira’s Awful Lunch and Samira Goes Shopping-two lovely new titles from Pratham Books were launched with due ceremony on the uncertain seas of life and they are sailing from one reader to the next with great aplomb!

Bharati Jagannathan, the author, said to me that she was feeling somewhat shy that we had organised a book launch for a 500 word book. She is an academic who teaches History to undergraduate students in a Delhi University college and 500 page books are more what she is used to…However, by the end of the afternoon she had revised her opinion of the impact of her 500 word book.

A large group of children from Jahangirpuri in Delhi had come to the book launch.They settled down in the corridor and Bharati sat on a moodha among them.They clearly stated which book they wanted read out first and by the time they had finished listening to both stories, they immediately knew their favourite.As Bharati read it out with great feeling, kids and families passing by stopped to listen and stayed…Being familiar with the stories, I was watching the faces of the children. It was better than any live mime act as their faces reflected each emotion unfolding in the story. Samira’s disgust at being offered a cockroach wing for lunch to her delight at finally making peace with her parathas and sabzi.

Bharati read out the books in Hindi and English and personally signed copies for the children.I think she knows now that it is hard work being a celebrity! We really appreciate Bharati’s books as well as her fine story telling which made for such an enjoyable book release.

Do read the Samira stories and tell all your friends about our 11 new titles.

You can see more pictures of the event here.

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