The Habitat Children’s Book Forum was launched in October 2003 at India Habitat Centre by well- known children’s writers Deepa Agarwal and Paro Anand, with the aim of nurturing the reading habit among children by showing them that books can be fun. Another objective was to promote the work of Indian authors and provide children with a platform to express their views about books. Response from children, parents, schools and authors and publishers has been enthusiastic and the Forum has acquired many regular members.
Over the last five years, a large number of books have been discussed and activities like meet the author, story telling, drawing storybook characters, writing stories and poems and book related quizzes conducted. Apart from the classics of Tagore, Hans Andersen, R.K. Narayan, Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay and Kalki, the writings of popular writers like J.K. Rowling, Roald Dahl and Enid Blyton, the work of contemporary Indian authors Ranjit Lal, Subhadra Sen Gupta, Anupa Lal, Vinita Singh, Dilip Salwi, Paro Anand, Nilima Sinha, Devika Rangachari and Deepa Agarwal has featured in these programmes.
Whenever possible, a book counter is set up as well, in order to address the problem of non-availability of books by Indian authors in most book shops.
The Book Forum usually meets on every second Saturday of the month at India Habitat Centre and is open to all children free of charge.
Contact Deepa Agarwal at 9811109123
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3 comments:
I have taken my kids to the Habitat Children's Book forum several times when they were studying in primary school. It is an excellent activity for children, with authors and other volunteers giving freely of their spare time to enthuse children about books. The activities are stimulating and a lot of fun for kids. So much better than sitting in front of the idiot box on a weekend. This forum is especially valuable for smaller age groups up to around 11 years.
I totally agree, Poornima. Please do pass the word around, talk to other parents in your child's class... The HCB says getting MIS children to come to their events is a problem!
I would suggest that the school invite an author once in 2 months and have an interactive session with the children. The group size has to be around 100 to have maximum impact. I'm sure some parents know good children's authors and we can use our contacts to keep the literary spirits soaring among our children. For. eg. in these sessions they could probably write a story, illustrate it and MIS could even publish them! I find so many creative and eager children in the school. Let us take the first step. We will not know what works unless we make an attempt. If it fails, no problem.. We can always try out another option!
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