Blog Post 1: Bookaroo Festival
With this first blog post, I happened to see this really interesting children’s literature festival that I felt was a great opportunity to share on the blog because it’s actually really interesting. The festival happens to be hosted in Delhi and centers all around children’s books, stories, poems, and more. It’s currently on it’s 10th edition of hosting this festival. They host many events like dramatized readings, theatre, art workshops, nature walks, poetry sessions and more. The festival is over two days and will be getting to host 61 national and international speakers from 13 countries. One aspect that I think is so great with the festival is they make sure they have a book for every different and various age group out there. Sometimes with these festivals, it can be a little alienating to some ages, but they pride themselves on “keeping with their idea of not treating children as a homogenous group” (Gupta). The reasoning for adding more to the event using music, theatre, puppetry, and other interesting and fun mediums is so they can hold onto the children’s attention. They will also include a couple different speakers as well. Tonya Bolden, Debi Gliori, Siddhant Shah, and Lavanya Karthik will be addressing different topics of discussion. Some of that discussion will even include the concept of inclusivity. The point of this is for the children to understand topics like disability, ailment, grief and much more. This to me sounds exactly like our class and the parallel of using these books and seeing the themes explored in these books of diverse children and situations like disability that they’re going through. They even have an option for those who won’t be able to travel to the festival by having this program called “Bookaroo in the City”. “Bookaroo in the City” will be taking speakers into schools and other places to meet the children who will not be able to make the festival. Overall, I see this event at making sure kids will be informed about issues, entertained, and wanting to continue to read different novels. Sounds great to me!
Works Cited:
Gupta, Aishwarya. “Bookaroo Festival Is Back in Delhi.” Https://Www.hindustantimes.com/, Hindustan Times, 24 Nov. 2017, www.hindustantimes.com/art-and-culture/bookaroo-festival-is-back-in-delhi/story-hr5G8U7zN7DXYnbGsVauCK.html.