Thaindian News

New Delhi, Nov 9 (IANS) Thousands of young readers will connect to their favourite writers like Ruskin Bond and Anthony Horowitz during more than 70 interactive literary sessions at Bookaroo, one of the biggest children’s book festivals here.

The festival - its third edition will be held from Nov 14-28 this year - promises to bring the best of children’s literature, including regional languages, across schools and at a common venue.

Bookaroo will begin in multiple venues in leading schools across the capital Nov 14-25 and will culminate in a carnival of literature at the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA) Nov 27-28.

The carnival will include a grand display-cum-sale of books and literary activities, a statement said Tuesday.

It will bring some more celebrated children’s authors, illustrators, poets, performers and storytellers from around the world, including Britain’s Horowitz and India’s own Ruskin Bond and Arjun Vajpai.

Besides a new venue, the highlights of the festival this year include a Schools’ Day exclusively for students and teachers Nov 26 and Bookart 10, an exhibition of artworks by some of the finest illustrators of children’s books.

The literary sessions that have been designed to provoke young intellects will be more interactive and performance oriented to allow the books to register in the heads, the organisers said.

A storytelling session, “Under the Kahani Tree”, will host writers Paro Anand, Jeeva Raghunath and Anupa Lal, while “At the Amphitheatre” will allow the children to let their imagination run free.

Children can learn about secret signs and hidden languages with Lian Tanner, listen to Wendy Orr and celebrate poetry with Wendy Cooling and Prayag Shukla.

“In the studio” will feature performances by Dadi Pudumjee and the Ishara Puppet Theatre Trust from their production “Giving Tree”. “At the Workshop” will allow children to create their own graphic novel with Campfire, a upcoming graphic novel publishing unit.

Actor Jaaved Jafferi will jam with children and Gulzar will teach children how to tell their own stories in a session, “On the Stage”. Children can play cloud football with author John Shulman and innovate on Shakespeare with theatre personality Anirudh Nair in a session, “At the Palms”.

Cindy Jefferies will teach children how to make books “In the Crafty Corner”, while learning to draw alongside illustrators like Atanu Roy, Suddhasattwa Basu and Taposhi Ghoshal in the “Doodle Wall”.

The festival, presented by Bookaroo Trust and Teamworks Productions, promotes the excitement and importance of literature locally, regionally and globally to encourage cultural exchange and dialogue on education and development.