Pratham Books at the New Delhi World Book Fair

At the 26th New DelhiWorld Book Fair, which was held at Pragati Maidan from January 6-14, there were throngs of eager beaver readers, little school children staring with wide-eyed wonder, parents, teachers, writers , illustrators all searching for books to take back home.

With environment degradation a serious concern, this year, the theme of the fair centred around topics such as climate change, global warming and water pollution. Pratham Books curated two story-telling sessions for children based on some of our environment themed books.

Storyteller Rohini Vij, travelled from Kanpur to narrate ‘A Butterfly Smile‘ by Mathangi Subramanian  and Lavanya Naidu and ‘A Cloud of Trash‘ by Karanjeet Kaur and Bhavana Vyas Vipparthi on January 12 at the Children’s Pavilion. Rituparna Ghosh who runs the Your Story Bag company and is an eminent Delhi-based storyteller, narrated ‘A Book for Puchku‘ by Deepanjana Pal and Rajiv Eipe and ‘Apu’s Giant Earthquake‘ by Sudeshna Shome Ghosh and Aindri Chakraborty on January 13. Both were stories were interactive and performance based engagements.

The sessions were packed to the gills with little people who had come braving the winter chill to spend a day with stories, at the fair. Through the ten days the Pratham Books stall also saw streams of visitors pouring in and sifting through books. The most heartening moment though was spotting a bunch of five-year- olds, on a school visit, shout out in unision “We want to buy all the books in this shop!”