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Bookaroo 2018
November 3, 2018
Bookaroo Day 02
The biting cold and gloomy snow did not deter the second day of the Bookaroo festival from bringing warmth of cheer and joy to the students. Students exercised their creativity in myriad ways that brought cheer to the faces of one and all. The following sessions were conducted:
- Auditorium: Various activities were conducted in the Auditorium. Andleeb Wajid conducted the session about developing imagination. He talked about his book ‘The Wolf is Back’ which talked to children about the techniques of self defense, and keeping one’s wits about oneself. Students marveled greatly at the techniques.
Shabnam Minwalla conducted a workshop on the theme ‘All in a school day’ which focused on a girl of grade 6th trying to adjust to the first day at a new school. Later the children were assigned a worksheet to describe the ‘teacher of their nightmares’. Students were seen poring over the worksheets, and laughing their fears off as each one described the teacher they feared most.
Vikram Sidhar conducted a story telling session on ‘Time Travel with Vikram’. The session drew on the evolution of a dessert called ‘Mysore Pak’ and the tale of its accidental creation. The session took students on a whirlwind tour of the historical characters and contexts of the royal household of Mysore and the British era in 1870’s. Children were fascinated by the details, and absorbed the various expressions and contexts with keen interest.
- Doodle Wall: Proity Roy conducted a session on ‘Masks on the Wall’. The resource person fascinated the children by drawing sketches of different animals from seemingly innocuous lines. The children had to guess the animal being drawn, and each participant was eager to get the answer right. Later children were provided the liberty to let loose their imagination, and unleash it on clay models.
In another session, she assisted the students in drawing a mask according to a shape conceived in one’s imagination. All the students corroborated in drawing the shapes, drawing inspiration from each other, and their own selves.
Gautam Benegal conducted a session on ‘The Plot Thickens’ which aimed at letting students know that a hidden talent exists in everyone. Through the means of a simple story with an interesting plot, students learnt that each one of us is born with capabilities. It is just a matter of realizing them by perseverance and patience. The students gave vent to their hidden talents by crafting exquisite shapes from lumpy clay models.
Lavanya Karthik and Savio Mascarenhas conducted a session titled ‘Battle of the Bushes’. A narrator recited a story while the two illustrators illustrated the story on a white board working simultaneously to breathe life into it. The relationship between text and image was vividly portrayed as the pictures emerged on white canvas, intriguing the students and attendant teachers alike.
- Crafty Corner: Four sessions were conducted at the corner. Rakesh Singh and Nausheen Nazir conducted a session on moulding ‘Shilpkar MSeal’ – a quick setting material, into various shapes. Students crafted flowers, friendship frames, petals and other objects from the material.
Nausheen Nazir conducted a similar session by herself in the pre-lunch session too where she assisted students in creating photo frames from ‘Slip-card’ and sticks. Students had great fun drawing alien forms from cardboard paper and acrylic paints
Siddhant Shah conducted a session on ‘Tactile Trails and Tales’. Students learnt to empathize with the disabled as their fingers were taped, and were instructed to draw with such a handicap. Also students were blindfolded, and given a picture to touch it, and feel it to draw attention to the gift of sight. Students could well imagine the frustration and exasperation of the disabled.
Savio Mascarenhas conducted a session on ‘The Comic book Treasure Hunt’. Students created a story using prompts related to character, situation and dialogue provided by the resource person. Each student came up with a unique story drawing on previously read stories, and entirely new stories drawn from their imagination.
Anita and Prakash conducted a session on ‘Bookazoo’. Students cut out body parts of different animals like dragon, elephant and unicorn, and pasted them on chairs to create animal replicas. The students huddled in enthusiastic groups, and loved working in teams to give shape to their imagination.
Student Volunteers conducted two sessions. In one session, students drew a cartoon figure that had been drawn on the easel by the volunteer. Students had a great time trying to get the contours and expression right. In another session, volunteers assisted participants in drawing a cartoon character, and arranging comic strips about a detective story in chronological order.
Savio Mascarenhas conducted a quiz session on ‘The Kalam Treasure Hunt’. Through ten competitive questions, students learnt about the various aspects of the life of the erstwhile president of India – APJ Abul Kalam.
- Studio: Shabnam Minwala conducted a session titled ‘A Pinch of Magic’. Aided by the resource person, the students created their own customized superhero with powers as they pleased. Each student was observed straining his mind, and greatly enjoying the role of the creator of a superhero. They found it such fun, and were seen giggling and laughing during the event.
Lavanya Karthik conducted a session on ‘To the Naniverse and beyond’. The session drew on the exploration of idiosyncratic comic characters in the mythical world of ‘Gadbadnagar’. The resource person explained the nuances of each character, and shared simple tips about her craft. The inner comic creator in the students was thus awakened, as they looked on with awestruck attention at how to draw comics, and fill in the details.
Andleeb Wajid conducted a session on ‘How on Earth do Writers write’. The session drew on the experience of creating a short story by employing two artifacts – A Pink Bottle in the Shape of a Cartoon Character, and a plain greenish pink water bottle. Students were exposed to the various techniques of short story writing by sustained discussion on the elements of short story writing – plot, character, and action. Students listened enrapt as they grappled with their own experiences to create their own stories.
Bijal Vichharajani conducted a session where students were introduced to the sounds and images of various animals and insects like Spider, Elephant, and Mud Skipper. Students learnt by the descriptions that writing can never be a restrictive task, rather they must lend their imagination a free rein.
- Patchakatha: Kapil Pandey conducted a session titled ‘Roll up-Roll up’ which tried to expose the gender biases of the society. By employing Rajasthani Folklore techniques, and a circular story of Chaudhari and his wife, the narration employed dramatic shifts in voice and colourful costume to bring forth the theme that women are no less talented and gifted than men. Children lapped up the story, and listened with keen unwavering attention, laughing, brooding, and getting startled as the story moved forward at a breakneck speed.
Kapil Pandey conducted another story telling session on ‘Shehzadi Madhumati Bol Uthi’. The story took a Rajasthani folk tale about a princess who has sworn a vow of silence, and crafted an exciting session full of drama, colour and dialogue around it. The resource person breathed a fresh lease of life into each character with suitable gestures and modulations of voice, enthralling the audience.
Champa Saha conducted an inspiring session on ‘Real Life Heroes’. The session focused on inspiring tales of children who have been awarded the Presidential Medal for Bravery. Children were fascinated by the insight that bravery is not an attribute of only superheroes, but exists in children who look no different from them.
In another session she regaled the students with a dramatic rendition of a tale of ‘The Clever Courtier’ complete with dialogues and suspense. Students were greatly entertained by the exploits of Birbal who never failed to answer any problem set out by the Emperor Akbar.
Neha Singh narrated a story from her book ‘Moongphali’. The story revolves about a boy Nandhu who is being dressed up as a watermelon by his mother for a fancy dress competition. Students loved the idea of each child being unique in his own right.
Vikram Sridhar conducted an unstructured session on inspiring stories drawn from real life. Children enjoyed listening to these stories, and admired the protagonists of such tales who impress upon us that bravery comes not in one form, but in umpteen forms and situations in ordinary life.
- Workshop: Bijal Vachnarajani conducted an informative and timely session on ‘So you want to know about the Environment’. Students were shown various informative videos on the connection between our ordinary lives, our moods and the environment. They were made aware about the intricate connection that environment has with lives all around the world, so that they bloom into environmental crusaders.
Andaleeb Wajid curated a session on story telling titled ‘Wolf Whispers’. Through the tale of a blood thirsty wolf, students learnt the art of survival and the importance of keeping their wits about them.
Bookaroo Day 01
Bookaroo – the festival of bringing the joy of books to children, is being hosted again for the 6th consecutive year by Delhi Public School, Srinagar. The two-day programme began today on 3rd November 2018 with extraordinary excitement and immense curiosity of the children of different age groups. The children were seen hurrying towards their allotted venues which they considered the treasure-houses of fun and frolic and also an ocean of innovations and exposure.
The day began with the arrival of the band of experts comprising of authors, story-tellers, illustrators, creativity experts and many more as Ben Jhonson says ‘Here is God’s plenty.’
The following events have been held so far:
a). Basement (Main Building) (Age group : 8-9 years)
1). Doodle wall and clay moulding :- The event started at 9:00 am and is being administered by Gautam Benegal who is an Animation Professor at Shristi Institute of Art, Design and Technology, Bangalore. He is also an animation film maker and a journalist.
The children were inculcated with the ideas of transforming their abstract thoughts into creative drawings and sketches on the doodle wall and also into amazing models by moulding clay into different forms.
2). On the beach :- The event started at 10:30 am and is being administered by Ms. Proiti Roy. She is a winner of the Big Little Book Award 2017. She also helps animals who are ill, hurt or in trouble.
She instilled the imagination of the children as to how they imagine sea and how they would like to spend a day by the sea, what they would do and how they would spend their time there ?
The children drew their imagination on the Doodle Wall inscribing, scribbling and sketching whatever they could imagine of the sea and how they would like to spend their day there. Boats, lighthouses, clouds, clear sky, ships, beaches and drawings of the sort were made by the children on the Doodle Wall.
3). Lasting images :- The event started at 12:00pm. It was administered by Mr. Gautam Benegal. He likes cartoons as well as serious stuff and has held exhibitions of his paintings in Important Sounding Places. He taught and guided children about story-telling by using the humble Post-It notes, shifting and shuffling them around and also inspired them to go through the stories of Tintin, Dogman and Naruto before creating their own stories.
He helped the children in narrative building by making them imagine and put in writing their ideas on the doodle wall. Children even wrote their imagination about Superman.
4). Super-silly :- The event started at 1:30pm and is administered by Ms. Lavanya Karthik who has the job of writing and drawing books for children. She believes in writing and drawing every sort of imagination that children are interested in.
Her best pieces of creation — Sneeze-man, Booger-boy, the Mighty Paratha and wonderful superheroes with strange and silly powers are worth a read. These books can give children the idea of writing their super-silly stories.
Ms. Lavanya encouraged children to create a story about a silly hero with amazing superpowers. The children were very excited and contributed their ideas in writing a silly story with all zest and fervour.
b). Examination hall (Junior college) :-
1).The Studio :- The event started at 9 am with Bijal Vachharajani. She is the editor Scissorhands can be often seen traipsing around the jungles of India. She filled the children with excitement for poetry by laying stress on visual and sound imagery to which the children responded with great zeal. She guided the children for creative writing skills in poetry.
2). Workshop :- The event was administered by Shabnam Minwala.In this event, the children were asked to create their own super-hero with some magical powers. Symbolically, its motto was to discover their own-selves. She presented her book – The shy Super-girl that lured the students towards creative writing.
This event was done in two sessions with two different age groups (5-6, 7-8) with two different themes.
Theme 1 :- Story telling as an art.
Theme 2 :- Discovering their own-selves via art.
c). Indoor Stadium :-
1). Dastaan :- The event started at 10:00am with Mr. Sajid and Mr. Vikram Sridhar. Mr. Sajid is the faculty of the host school and heads the Dept. of Drama. Mr. Vikram Sridhar works with under privileged children, is n animal rescuer and also a writer.He is a great story-teller.The motto of this event was to create nostalgia of the era when we were far away from the cyber-zone and global age. They narrated stories, usually from the folk literature and the children seemed quite interested in them as they created longingness among one and all.
- The folk tales narrated( in Kashmiri language ) to the children were :-
- Kateje Bache thi al beul 2. Shale kaak
- The folk tales narrated by Vikram Sridhar to the children were the folk tales from the land of Rajnikant.
2). Patchakatha :- This event was administered by great story-tellers Champa Saha and Kapil Panday. Here the young audience got the glimpses of the Fable World Literature. They explored the possibilities of animal characters in the arena of fiction. It was again a highlighter for the significance of the sound expressions.
d). Auditorium :-
1). Storytelling and story writing :- The event was administered by Lavanya Karthik and Bijal Vichharajani. The aim was the enhancement and enrichment of the creative writing skills.
Ms. Bijal gave the beginning line for a story and asked the children to complete it using their imagination and creative skills.
Ms. Lavanya emphasized on the significance of sounds and their perfect intonation.
e). Basement (Tiny Tots) :-
1). Crafty corners :- This event was a joint effort. It was conducted in collaboration by a team of expert artists namely Siddhant Shah, Savio Mascarenhas and Malavika PC. They illuminated the traditional arts and craft of different states of India by blind folding and paper made animals. The audience was filled with wonder by witnessing, how to make waste paper useful and beneficial.
Bookaroo Authors with Special Children
Camp Fire
Bookaroo Authors visit Chandhara Heritage Village
DPS Srinagar brings Bookaroo Children’s Literature Festival to Srinagar for the 5th year
Srinagar, November 2, 2018 – The DP Dhar Memorial Trust Bookaroo Children’s Literature Festival is making it 5th venture into Srinagar. In partnership with DPS Srinagar, the festival is scheduled to take place on 3-4 November, 2018 at the premises of DPS in Athwajan Chowk from 9AM to 2:30PM.
The Festival won the prestigious London Book Fair International Excellence Award for Literary Festival in 2017. Since its inception in 2008, Bookaroo has visited 10 cities and has held 29 editions in the last 10 years. This year in Srinagar, the festival will welcome 18 authors, illustrators, poets, crafts-persons and storytellers to unveil their magic.
Bookaroo has been championing the cause of bringing stories alive through storytelling, dramatized reading, workshops, art and craft. The Festival aims to encourage freedom of thought in young minds thereby promoting a love for literature. Welcoming children as booklovers, the festival is specially curated for 6 to 13 year olds with sessions for every age at every hour. Bookaroo Srinagar is also supported by Pidilite’sFevicreate, which develops creative hobby ideas for children of all ages.
Vijay Dhar, chairman, DP Dhar Memorial Trust said, “We are happy to be facilitating a meeting of celebrated minds, cultural experiences from across India with the children of DPS. This is bound to stoke the love for literature in young minds as it has for the last four editions. We look forward to the children’s infectious energies and charge the Festival’s atmosphere with their vigour.”
Says Shantanu Bhanja, CEO Consumer Products, Pidilite,“This is our first venture with Bookaroo and we are truly delighted to be associated with such a unique program. This event also perfectly ties in with our Fevicreate initiative, through which we try to give an impetus to new learning methods and provide the children a platform to unleash their creativity.The association with Bookaroo gives us an opportunity to engage with the young minds. We look forward to witnessing the creative talent of the children at DPS during the festival.”
Swati Roy, festival director, Bookaroo said, “As ever, it is very exciting to bring Bookaroo to Srinagar which holds a special place in our hearts. Srinagar was the first city outside Delhi that Bookaroo ventured into back in 2011. We hope that the children will have a wonderful time with the authors, illustrators and storytellers who are coming. It is a pleasure to be associated with DPS Srinagar, a relationship that we have cherished and will continue to cherish in the coming years.”
Alistair R. A. Freese, principal, DPS, has this to say, “This is my first Bookaroo. And I look forward to an exciting meeting of the children and the creators of the books they love to read. I am sure that this edition too will be equally successful as the earlier ones.”
Bookaroo Srinagar will feature a spectacular line-up of speakers with more than 80 sessions to look forward to. Additionally, there are exciting sessions on wildlife, environment, creating comics, painting and tales of nature’s greatest mysteries.
The speakers at Bookaroo Srinagar are:
Andaleeb Wajid has been writing since she was ten but had to wait twenty years to be published! Her two sons do not read her books but are a constant source of inspiration.
ArefaTehsin* grew up treading jungles with her naturalist father. She was often found trying to catch a snake or spin a yarn. The Ex-Honorary Wildlife Warden, Udaipur, is the author of several books and a columnist in newspapers and magazines.
When BijalVachharajani* is not reading Harry Potter or worrying about climate change, she can be found traipsing around the jungles of India. When you meet her, ask her why she is known as Editor Scissorhands.
ChampaSaha* is a teacher, special educator and counsellor who has been reading, listening to and telling stories ever since she can remember.
Fevicreatedevelops creative hobby ideas for children of all ages. Their aim is to use craft as a tool to make learning simpler, helping children’s development in a meaningful and fun way so that they become more creative and solutions-oriented.
Gautam Benegal* will probably be silently figuring out what you’d look like on paper from the moment you are introduced. He likes cartoons as well as serious stuff and has held exhibitions of his paintings in Important Sounding Places.
Kapil Pandey* discovered his passion for storytelling at the grand old age of 30 when he met the Gruffalo in the deep dark wood. When not telling stories, he runs marathons and sometimes goes to work.
Lavanya Karthik* has the best job in the world – writing and drawing books for children. She also eats a lot of cake and talks to street dogs… occasionally they talk back (the dogs, not the cake).
Neha Singh* loves creating stories through books, plays and films. She believes there is a crazy story inside every person, itching to be told.
ProitiRoy,*awinner of the Big Little Book Award 2017, illustrates for children’s books. She also helps animals who are ill, hurt or in trouble. She loves to sit at her desk- illustrating, surrounded by dogs she rescued, with a hot cup of tea.
QissagoKailash Waghmare is an actor-singer who has worked in several renowned plays and in Marathi films. He sleeps, dreams and thinks theatre.
QissagoSaattvic is an economist who works at a law firm, moonlights as an actor, starlights as a tabla player, torchlights as a playwright, candlelights as a singer and fairylights as a film-maker.
Sajid Mohiuddin, who hails from the serene town of Sumbal loves to stay active at all times. An NSD-trained theatre actor and drama writer, he recreates Kashmiri folk stories through visuals and performing art.
Savio Mascarenhas’* is the creative mind behind Super Suppandi, the super avatar of Suppandi. He is also the artist for Little Shambu, based on the childhood adventures of Shikari Shambu.
Shabnam Minwalla was senior assistant editor with the Times of India but now has the even more brain-scrambling job of being a mother of three. When time permits, she dons her writer’s hat!
Siddhant Shah*, a TEDx speaker, heritage architect and accessibility consultant with UNESCO, works with museums and art galleries to bridge the gap between cultural heritage and disability, through multi-sensory experiential activities, for children with special needs.
Vikram Sridhar* grew up on stories of laddoos and curd rice. Once grown up, he decided to combine his varied pursuits of drama, rescuing monkeys and working with underprivileged children by becoming a storyteller.