JOIN USStorytelling and the challenges involved in writing for young readers took centre stage at the ongoing Spring Fever festival here with Ruskin Bond, a favourite author with children discussing the issue with Sudha Murthy, an entrepreneur and an author herself.
At the fourth day of the festival on Monday, an initiative of Penguin Books, the duo read out from their books ‘Hip Hop Nature Boy’ and ‘Dollar Bahu’ respectively.
During the session titled ‘Friends from small places’, Ruskin Bond recalled his early days as a writer acknowledging that it was difficult to get publishers for books written for children.“As someone who has grown up passionately wanting to be a writer, there is a sense of responsibility you feel towards your readers,” said Bond.
“When it comes to children, the responsibility is felt more as you want to instil good values in them, while staying humorous as well,” he said.
Author Sudha Murthy who has written a book on a wide range of genres acknowledged that easy access to information had made it difficult to write books for children. “Writing for children is a big challenge as you need to first understand today's children. With today’s tech savvy children, there is no dearth of information or knowledge. Children are direct and not biased and therefore we owe it to them to be responsible in our writing”, she said. The writer is the wife of N R Narayana Murthy, co-founder of Infosys.
“Many say if we were rich like you we would also have become authors, but you don’t need to be rich to become an author. I am an extrovert who loves to share her experiences with everyone,” said Sudha.