Stay at home, read for free

Stories by some of India’s best children writers are available online for free — why not make use of them while cooped up?

These are difficult times for all of us. But it is wonderful how people everywhere have made resources available to keep children engaged ⁠— stories, movies, virtual museum tours, zoo webcams ⁠— all just a google search away. Children’s authors and illustrators have been holding free online reading and illustrating sessions. (Look out for Indian kidlit authors on social media with #ThodaReadingCorona).

Here’s a wonderful resource that has been around long before Covid-19 and will stay on long after: Storyweaver, from Pratham Books. (https://storyweaver.org.in/). It’s a great resource to engage children, pandemic or not.

Storyweaver has thousands of stories created by India’s best writers and illustrators, completely free. There are stories for children of all ages and reading levels. Each story is available in multiple languages. There’s fiction, non-fiction, general knowledge, biographies, classics ⁠— something to satisfy every child’s interests. A whole lot of STEM-based books explain science and math concepts. There are also read-along books and some even have moving pictures!

All the stories are under the Creative Commons CC-BY license. That means you can download, print, share and use the stories in any way you wish, as long as you credit the original creator. You can make up your own stories and upload them onto the website. You can try your hand at translating the stories into your mother tongue! Look for the 'Recommended' tag on the stories. It will alert you to those stories that have been read and recommended by Storyweaver. But that does not mean that you will not find some pleasant surprises among the other stories.

These are some of my favourite stories on Storyweaver:

Ammachi’s Amazing Machines by Rajiv Eipe: Can’t help loving this feisty grandma and her bright ideas. A great intro to simple machines.

Snip by Canato Jimo: A sweet, wordless picture book about two siblings who get into trouble.

The Tino, the Rhear and the Biger by Ashok Rajagopalan: A wonderfully silly story that is sure to make you laugh.

Nani’s Walk to the Park by Deepa Balsavar: Detailed illustrations will keep you absorbed for hours.

There are serious stories too, which don’t hesitate to take on topics that aren’t talked about much in children’s literature. Behind the Lie, written by Asha Nehemiah and illustrated by Aindri C, deals with domestic abuse very sensitively.

In Making Friends with Snakes (But from a Distance), Rohan Chakravarty tells you all about snakes with his trademark humour and fun illustrations.

Anna’s Extraordinary Experiments with Weather by Nandita Jayaraj and illustrated by Priya Kuriyan, is about the life and work of scientist Anna Mani ⁠— a biography cannot get more fun and relatable than this.

In How Old is Muttajji, by Roopa Pai and illustrated by Kaveri Gopalakrishnan, two children figure out their great-grandmother’s age using math and historical clues.

This column doesn’t have enough space to list down all my other favourites, so I’ll let you go and discover them on your own. Stay at home, read and stay safe!

The author got a master’s degree in energy engineering and worked in the IT industry until her daughter dragged out the writer lurking inside her. She has written eight books for children and can be reached at www.shruthi-rao.com

GobbledyBook is a fortnightly column that gives you a peek into the wondrous world of children’s books. Hop on! Or as Alice did, plunge into the rabbit hole.