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Gifting some 'portable magic'

Access to attractive books with fascinating stories and illustrations is crucial if kids are to develop a love for reading and many are now trying to do exactly that.
Last Updated 16 January 2021, 20:30 IST

Studies show that if children have access to books beyond their schoolbooks, they learn better. This is true especially for first-generation learners — those who are the first in their family to go to school, or become literate. Attractive books with stories and illustrations help them love books and the act of reading. That leads to them reading more easily. And naturally, once they are comfortable reading, they are able to learn more.

But, unfortunately, these are the very children, whether they live in urban or rural areas, who are least likely to have access to books beyond textbooks. Even if they do, the books are very often not in the language they are comfortable with, and do not have characters or situations that they can relate to.

Fortunately, several individuals, community organisations, and NGOS are working towards getting books to children. Pratham Books (https://prathambooks.org), with their mission to see “a book in every child’s hand”, has done a stellar job in producing excellent books and making them available to children, in the language they speak, and with stories that they can relate to. StoryWeaver, which I’ve spoken about often in this space, is a Pratham initiative. I particularly like their Library-in-a-Classroom. It includes 100 curated beautifully illustrated books specific to the needs of the school that requests them. For a very reasonable sum, any school anywhere in the country, no matter how tiny or remote, can have a library of 100 books hanging on their wall! Just having a library-like atmosphere gets children reading more!

Parag (https://paragreads.in), an initiative of TATA trusts, is also working to make children’s literature available to children in all languages. Parag supports development of new books, trains authors, illustrators, educators and librarians, and have opened several libraries in association with schools in rural areas. They release the Parag Honour List every year, which you can refer to next time you’re looking for a good book.

Each year, they honour a children’s author (each year a different language) and an illustrator with the Big Little Book Award (BLBA). The BLBA awards of 2020 went to author Subhadra Sen Gupta (English), and illustrator Rajiv Eipe. In previous years, the awards were given to authors Madhuri Purandare (Marathi, 2016), Nabaneeta Dev Sen (Bengali, 2017), Nagesh Hegde (Kannada, 2018), Prabhat (Hindi, 2019) and illustrators Atanu Roy (2016), Proiti Roy (2017), Nina Sabnani (2018) and Priya Kuriyan (2019). I’m sure regular readers of this column will recognise many of these names!

This is the kind of push that children’s books need, right from funding new books, facilitating libraries and educators, support and recognition of children’s book creators, distributing the books, and making them available to those who need them the most. And this way, we can look forward to a future with a more literate, informed generation of citizens.

The author has written 10 books for children and can be reached at www.shruthi-rao.com

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

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(Published 16 January 2021, 20:19 IST)

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