Bookaroo

The Childrens Literature Festival hosted by the British School on the 28th and 29th of November called Bookaroo was well worth our visit. This festival put up a range of activities that catered to the interests of children between the ages of four and fourteen.

Bookaroo works in tandem with renowned writers, illustrators, storytellers, theatre people, publishers and schools. This year Bookaroo focused on regional literature, with special emphasis on Bangla. I reached the school at 10.15am, all set for the morning session. The ambience was intense.There were venues set up for different activities. At the reception, I picked up a pamphlet which listed the details of events to be covered over the next two days.

The storytelling sessions were held at three different venues, where three different mediums were used to narrate stories. One medium was the Read Aloud session which was similar to the way story telling is conducted at our School. The second medium Patuas, is a traditional way of narrating stories in Bengal. It uses a large scroll of cloth with pictures. An entire story is depicted through four clippings, which are painted on this cloth. The children present were given a chance to paint the outlined pictures in colours of their choice. There were no colour restrictions ( a pink tree, a yellow cloud were all acceptable!) .The third medium was again through pictures but here, the characters of the story were painted in natural colours extracted of turmeric or leaves of plants mixed with natural glue (bhel). A live demonstration was given to the audience on how to extract these colours.

Many visiting authors gave narrations of their books to the children present at the festival. Groups of children could be seen listening to and enjoying their inimitable styles of telling stories.

Besides the story telling sessions, there were other activities too. One activity planned for the children gave them insight into space, fine motor coordination and development. This was a quilling activity. Students made flowers or butterflies with the quilling technique and pasted them on a wall with the help of volunteers present.

Bookaroo had also arranged a craft corner where small tables were set up and equipped with a glue stick, a pair of blunt scissors and some colour paper. Children could come here and create their own craft. It was a perfect outlet for the little minds bursting with ideas after their exposure at Bookaroo!

The visit was an eye-opener with a wide collection of ideas and techniques that could easily be absorbed into our curriculum. I plan to share these ideas among our teachers at School so we can provide an even richer learning experience to our children.

Ms. Shikha Sharma, Preprimary Department