Pahi Shrivastava of Chirec International School Hyderabad wrote in to us recently about a storytelling session she conducted at a child labour rehabilitation camp run by CHORD India.

Pahi and her classmate Yathirajvally Voruganti read Wailers Three - A Folktale From China in English and Telugu and then conducted a bullying awareness session. "The session had great participation and interaction from the children" shares Pahi who used a book she had created on StoryWeaver during the session. You can read her story 'Share it, Speak up, Stop it - a self-help book against bullying' here.

"I saw bullying all around me and was very upset and felt helpless that I was not able to do anything. I read many books and resources on bullying but many were expensive. Also the context was American. So I wanted to do a campaign in India on bullying awareness.  I shared the story I created on StoryWeaver with NGOs who work in this field and got very good feedback from them. I have already done bullying awareness sessions in my community, my dad's office and at the CHORD India Child labour rehabilitation camp. Bullying is real and hurting lots of kids. I'm hoping my book can reach more children through the StoryWeaver platform. Child labour is also close to my heart and I want to write story on that too."

Pahi is a voracious reader and likes to read Roald Dahl, Ruskin Bond, Upendrakishore Roychoudhary. She loves The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Around the World in 80 days and Alice in Wonderland. We look forward to reading more stories from her on StoryWeaver and hearing more about her work in campaigning against bullying! More power to you!

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A 'wordless' picture book? Sounds like an oxymoron doesn't it? Well, wordless books can actually be a great addition to your reading shelf - virtual or otherwise. 

Wordless books are something to share with children of all ages. They're a fantastic way to explore, engage and educate children and vocabulary, storytelling skills and creative muscles can be stretched with wordless books. But best of all, and most importantly, worldless books are a sheer joy to behold! 

Last year, the #6FrameStoryChallenge was launched with the core idea of creating a rich illustration bank for StoryWeaver and thereby creating a repository of simple, wordless stories told in 6 frames. At the time, the Pratham Book's blog wrote this:

'In the 1980s and 90s, the National Book Trust had published a few precious wordless picture books. Over the last decade, we haven't seen as many of these being published in India and so the time seems ripe for this flood of beautiful wordless stories. Not only will these stories cut across language barriers, but they will also inspire young readers to weave their own stories around the illustrations, offering ample room for multiple re-imaginings and unique perspectives.'

You can read the rest of the post here.

Wondering what to do with wordless stories? 

The StoryWeaver team has put together some ideas for you, incase you're wondering how to enjoy a wordless books with your children:

- Explore the story in a leisurely manner. Draw attention to the details - the expressions of the characters, setting, colours, etc. 'Out in the Garden' is a worldless story created with Sonal Gupta's illustrations that lends it self beautifully to this activity. 

- Encourage the child to build her own story. If the story is being shown to a group of children, you could ask each of them to contribute a sentence or two for each illustration. Take joy in exploring each illustration and build the story as you go along.

- Use themes explored in the story to start a discussion. For instance, in the story, 'The Birthday Party' illustrated by Megha Vishwanath  you could ask children about what they did for their birthday, or even how they help out at home.

- Encourage children to create 2-3 different stories using the same set of visuals. This will help them explore their own creativity! Here are some lovely illustration sets to get you started! 

Muhammed Shafi's simple illustrations of a man in a boat. You can find more illustrations from him here.  

Aritra Roy's whimsical bear and its adventures with a parachute. You can see the other illustrations from this set here. 

If you'd like to see more amazing illustrations and inspirations for wordless stories, follow us on Instagram and watch our for our #6FramesFriday! 

We hope you enjoy reading and creating your own wordless picture books and sharing them! Do leave us a comment below or on our Twitter and Facebook page with #WordlessPictureBook. 

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Book trailers are a phenomenon taking the internet by storm! They're a great way to share a sneak peek into new books and create excitement amongst readers. 

With over 1500 books and 3000 gorgeous illustrations to choose from, StoryWeaver thought that book trailers would be a wonderful thing to create and share with our vibrant community... so drum roll please...here's our very first book trailer!

We decided to launch our YouTube Channel on World Earth Day, 2016 with a book trailer of 'Jadav and the Tree-place'. Written and illustrated by the immensely talented Vinayak Varma (who has recently been shortlisted for the 2016 Commonwealth Short Story Prize)  the book tells the story of real-life hero Jadav 'Molai' Payeng who transformed a barren stretch of land on the Brahmaputra sand bank in to a lush forest 'filled with feathers and beaks and wings, with claws and tails and fangs.'

Watch the book-trailer for 'Jadav and the Tree-place' in English here:

You can see the Marathi book trailer, here: 

To get regular updates from StoryWeaver's YouTube channel, direct to your inbox, subscribe now! 

 

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