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 6-13-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.”
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.
