Bookaroo in the City (Day 1) : Happy Accidents
14 years ago
Have you ever fallen into the pages of a book and fallen off your chair laughing? Have you ever smelled the earth as you see the picture of rain falling on parched mud? Pratham Books brings you such magic in your world with books! Pratham Books is proud to present “Bookaroo in the City” across 22 schools in Delhi. And guess who all are coming? Anthony Horowitz, Cindy Jefferies, Paro Anand, Lian Tanner ….and many other exciting names from the world of books.
On 16th November, as part of the “Bookaroo in the City” program, Pratham Books was spreading the joy of reading in four schools. Well, it was supposed to be just three schools, but the fourth one happened by accident and a happy accident it was! My colleague Rajesh Khar shares his experiences at two of the events…
Session – 1:
Well this session was supposed to be at the Savera School, however, we (Swagata Sen Pillai and I) reached an adjacent school run by the Rotary Club (Basti School, Srinivaspuri – this is housed in the same set of flats along with Savera) similar in nature to the Savera and then as Swagata had started conversing with the children, we conducted a session there as well! A group of 45 young children very earnestly listened to her stories – Cheenu’s Gift and Phani’s Funny Chappal (Hindi versions). So, before Jo could discover what was happening (I mean Jo Williams, who had reached Savera by then and had frantically called our team to find out about Swagata’s whereabouts), this session was on and then Jo gave us time to finish up the session before Swagata could go for the actual Savera School session.
Session – 2: Savera School, Srinivaspuri, New Delhi
Here Swagata read out 2 stories to the children – Cheenu’s Gift and Phani’s Funny Chappals, both in Hindi. The children enjoyed the stories a lot. She had carried A3 size colour printouts of funny illustrations of slippers, drawn by Rajiv Banjara of Pratham, with her. She also had about 5 copies of the Phani’s Funny Chappals. Children responded to her in their cute little way and some even tried to tell Swagata their own little stories! About 50 children participated in this story-telling session. All the teachers stood and helped Swagata hold the book for children as it was a little cramped area.
Swagata Sen Pillai shares some of the photos taken at the events :
You can view all the images from this event and Bookaroo 2010 here.
