BOOKAROO Festival of Childrens Literature, held annually in Delhi, was held at the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA) on November 29 and 30, 2014. This was the 7th edition of the popular fest. The Bookaroo festival truly celebrates childrens literature. And how! Spanning everything from story-telling, quizzes and poetry to workshops on picture-book illustrations and paper craft, the festival builds a strong bridge to connect books and children. This year, there were 99 delightful sessions by writers and illustrators lined up for the weekend. Deepa Aggarwal, Devika Rangachari, Lucy Hawking ( daughter of Professor Stephen Hawking), Julia Wauters, Jamila Gavin, Anuradha Majumdar, Ameen ul Haque were a few of the many speakers at the festival this year.
We were among the 10 lucky students from classes VIII and IX who were given the opportunity by School to visit the festival on November 29. Nothing short of the Jaipur Literary Festival, the popularity of the festival was obvious from the huge numbers of people in attendance there, surprisingly all age groups! Spread across the sprawling lawns of the IGNCA, the BOOKAROO festival made a captivating theme for a painting! On entering, we were welcomed at the reception where we received our programme flyer. Right next to the reception was The Palms, ( named so because of the beautiful palm trees surrounding the area) the venue of a story-telling session by Rituparna Ghosh, where children sat and listened in rapt attention, to the story of The Pterodactyls Egg.
We were led to the Mati Ghar by one of the volunteers. It was a charming circular structure made from earth. Inside, we found ourselves in a small hall with a projector screen. There we attended a session by Andaleeb Wajid, who spoke about her latest book for teenagers, Never Say Goodbyes. We were rather intrigued by her story, where Tamanna, a teenage girl in 2012 lands in 1982 and meets her teenage mother! We later asked her questions about her books, her career and also what inspired her to write the book.
The lovely sunny weather made for a good outing and the light was just right for a photo-op. We posed in front of the Mati Ghar to capture the moment on camera! Since we had a little time in hand before the next session, we headed to Eureka- the bookshop. Here, we found ourselves in a world of delightful books. We could not contain our excitement! We looked for books by our favourite authors. We bought some like Supernatural Short Stories by Charles Dickens, ' Who was Steve Jobs?' , ' Who was Roald Dahl?' , 2014-The Election that Changed India, Matilda and many more, for ourselves and also for our School library.
Soon it was time for our next session at the Crafty Corner- Things We Love with Henning Wagenbreth, a professor, an illustrator and designer from Germany. How we enjoyed an hour of drawing our favorite things! We even received the expertise of Mr. Wagenbreth, who visited each table and spoke to us about our work and also gave his valuable inputs.
We quickly caught up on an ongoing book reading session by Anuradha Majumdar at the Amphitheatre, who read excerpts from her book Infinity Adventures. We learnt about the mysterious blue stone that must return to a secret valley before the Dargate arrive. And for the climax.well, we surely need to read the seemingly interesting book!
Much to our dismay, it was soon time for us to call it a day. But not before we visited the Gallery, which housed the exhibition of artwork by ten well-known childrens books illustrators, namely, Anitha Balachandran, Jagdish Joshi, Priya Kuriyan, Suvidha Mistry and the late Bind Thapar, to name a few.
The festival was indeed a visual and sensory delight. We had a wonderful time at the festival and we are looking forward to returning next year, with new books and more exposure. Till then, no litter,only literature. Happy reading to us!
-Mirambika Mukherjee, VIII E.
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