If you've noticed a spate of translations to Tibetan on StoryWeaver recently, then you can give the credit to Tenzin Dhargyal. An English teacher at TCV School, Suja, Himachal Pradesh, Tenzin came across StoryWeaver while browsing through Facebook. He reached out to us and asked if we could add Tibetan to the platform so that he could translate and create stories for students. 

"I am translating these books so that I can inspire other Tibetan teachers to translate children’s stories to the language. There is a real dearth of good quality stories for kids in Tibetan."says Tenzin.

Tenzin Dhargyal, English Teacher, TCV School, Suja, Himachal Pradesh.

Tenzin has been working with children for a long time now and felt that while his students had many books to choose from in English, there just wasn't enough choice when it came to Tibetan.  

The Tibetan Children’s Village school is a charitable institution with classes from Kindergarten to Standard XII. Tenzin has already shared stories with some of the children online and has plans to download, print and share copies of the stories with his colleagues for them to use in the classroom. 

"Storyweaver can be very helpful indeed! Students can read and get motivated to translate some short, level 1 stories to Tibetan language. This can be also an activity for them. Our teachers can translate some of the stories in Tibetan and use them in class. In fact, some of them have already done this." shares the enthusiastic teacher.

Tenzin reached out to other teachers through a Facebook group he is a part of with links to StoryWeaver and requested them to use the platform for translation. They all answered his call and responded, and Tenzin is confident that others will follow suit. Mr. Tenzin Dorjee la,  the Principal of a Tibetan school in Dharamsala and his children have translated two stories and Dr. Chok who works in the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives in Dharamsala and Jigme Wangden la who teaches Tibetan at TCV School have all been active on StoryWeaver. 

You can read all the Tibetan translations by Tenzin and his colleagues here.

 

"All children are equal, they are the future owners of this planet." says Tenzin "Lets  make them good human beings through the morals from these stories we tell."

If you would like to translate or create stories on StoryWeaver and can't find your language of choice, write to us at [email protected] with your request.

Here's to spreading the joy of reading to more children in as many languages as possible.

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Riddhi Dastidar, Outreach Team member shares her experiences from a recent storytelling session at a Teach for India classroom in Delhi.

Recently, I found myself making my way to a grade 7 classroom in South Delhi where a room with brightly colourful walls, filled with little girls with red-ribboned hair, smiling faces, and questions in their shy eyes awaited me. We walked in as Sameera ‘Didi’ was finishing up a lesson. Sameera is a lawyer turned Teach For India Fellow. Teach For India’s vision is that one day all children will attain an excellent education. In 2016, Teach For India impacted students across 353 schools in seven cities across India. 

We were there to share Mathangi Subramanian's 'A Butterfly Smile', a story that follows the journey of little Kavya who has just moved to the big scary city of Bengaluru from her native village where her parents used to be farmers. Now they live near a noisy construction site far from the colours and butterflies of her old home. She decides to venture her knowledge about butterflies on a class-trip to the butterfly garden and in the process begins to find a new sense of belonging.

This story was especially appropriate for a TFI classroom, where the message is always that right outside your comfort zone is where the magic can be found! 

On this day, Mathangi and the children read the story together, and the children filled in facts that they already knew about butterflies. We discussed what it felt like to be new, to move somewhere completely different and what helped them to be brave like Kavya in a tough situation!

We touched upon how butterflies actually come from caterpillars sleeping in big fat coccoons. Much like the cocoons, the girls were bursting to the brim with questions for Mathangi about her life as a writer. They got into groups and decided which of their many questions to ask:

“How long have you been making stories?”

“How do you decide the topics for your books?”

“How do you create your characters?!“

“I wrote my first story when I was five and I published my first book when I was 35 – so it took me 30  years!” Mathangi told them, blowing their minds.

“I like telling stories but it takes a lot of work and patience to become a writer. It comes from watching how people who are different from me live- so with this story, I was walking down a street in Bangalore and noticed some kids playing in a construction site…"

We discussed the research that goes into deciding what to write about and all of the little tiny everyday observations that go into the creation of characters and books. Observation and listening were superpowers the girls were trying to practice in their own lives too.

“It’s sometimes about meeting people, sometimes about reading things- but it’s mostly about seeing everything in the world”, Mathangi shared.

After the session, we said goodbye with many hugs and waves, but the conversation continued.

The girls compared and contrasted their lives and the things that made them brave, as shy 7 year old babies to now as 12 year olds who feel capable of taking care of themselves.  

After Mathangi’s revelations on how being a careful observer played a big role in her life as a writer, the children picked up this thread to talk about where they observed and absorbed things from- from their families and homes to the increasing influence of their peers, teachers and the outside world as they grew up. Some brought up the point that while as a norm, parents want the best for them and were where they got their brave from, sometimes they could be wrong too. Some of the girls brought up the subtle ways in which their gender sometimes felt like a cocoon of the limiting kind instead!

This is the role we hope to play with our STEM books - to get children thinking about science, themselves and their connection to the world around them - and to leave their brains buzzing and the ideas and words flowing- long after we leave the room, or the last page of a book is turned.

You can read A Butterfly Smile in 5 languages on StoryWeaver.

You can see more photos from the session here.

(All opinions expressed here are those of the individual.) 

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The cutest, warmest, furriest, squishiest and bubbly cheeks-pull worthy photos of kids are the ones in which they are cuddling up with a loving animal. Well now, we can't send an animal your way (We are hopeful that the crazy futuristic era will have an easy animal courier service so that we can all share different pets in different states… or even countries… ! Ah! What a bliss! But we digress…). So, until that future hops, skips and prances up to us, what we CAN give you is a list of books instead that you can cuddle up with, along with excited little humans. Books about animals- Funny, unpredictable, generous, strange, friendly, loud and just adorable.

Good Night, Tinku By Preethi Nambiar

Illustrator – Sonal Goyal, Sumit Sakhuja

Afraid of the dark? We all are sometimes. Here comes Tinku the dog, who explored the dark and found…. friends! Tag along where he wags on, and meet some new animals that are wide awake when you are deep asleep. From Hindi to Sanskrit, from French to Italian, we have all these translations available for you, and more!

Anaya's Thumb by Natasha Sharma

Illustrator – Ruchi Shah

Anaya has a bad habit. She keeps sucking her thumb! Know anyone like that? But then one day she went to the zoo and quit her bad habit. Read about the human and animal behavior she witnessed there to make this surprising decision. Apart from some Indian languages, this book is also available in German and Portuguese!

Sniffles, the Crocodile and Punch, the Butterfly by Herminder Ohri

Illustrator – Herminder Ohri

A big, strong animal that cries and a light as feather one that likes to punch! Let's go beyond the deceptive waters of someone's cover and read about this amazing frienship that… saved lives! Do you know Sniffles, the crocodile also speaks in Kiswahili and IsiXhosa? We have this story available in these two African languages too.

Clean Cat by Kanchan Bannerjee

Illustrator – Deepa Balsavar

It doesn't matter how long you've been living somewhere, you will never know your neighborhood as well as a cat. This Clean Cat is up to all kinds of fun and antics. Read in 6 languages including Urdu, Marathi and two bilingual versions too!

Samira's Awful Lunch by Bharati Jagannathan

Illustrator – Preeti Krishnamurthy

How many of you have heard of kids complaining about what they got for lunch? *raises hand* You too? That's what we thought. Well, we have some very kind animals in this book who are willing to ideas for food alternatives. Do read and find out what Samira finally chooses!

(The Generous Crow) by Venkatramana Gowda

Illustrator - Padmanabh

It's hard to be in a classroom full of students feeling left out as you feel 'different' or smaller than the others. It's probably like being a small crow in a huge forest full of animals that seem better than you. This is a story in Assamese, Telegu and Tamil in which a crow 'Caws Caws' his way into a journey of self-identity and self-esteem.

 

Noisy Crows by Kanchan Bannerjee

Illustrator - Deepa Balsavar

Here's another story about crows and this one is just plain NOISY! Available in Hindi, Marathi and Kannada along with English as bilingual books, make sure that you find out which animal likes this crow's singing.

The Jungle Book by Madhav Chavan, Meera Tendolkar

Illustrator - Ketan Raut

Translated in Punjabi and Odia, along with three African languages, this book follows the day of a few animal friends who hear about an exciting new development in the forest. Their jungle has a school! So they go in search of it and wait for the teacher. Guess who turns up?

Busy Ants by Kanchan Bannerjee

Illustrator – Deepa Balsavar

Have you ever seen ants just loitering about or sitting under a shade passing their time? No, they are always busy, and they have some unique traits and skills too! You can read all about them in Malayalam and Tamil, along with other languages!

 

भीमा गधा (Bheema, the Sleepyhead) by Kiran Kasturia

Illustrator – Shweta Mohapatra

Translated in 14 languages, this book tries to answer a fundamental question of our existence- How does a person (in this case, a donkey) wake up early in the morning? Bheema likes to sleep like a log, and it doesn't matter who tries to wake him up- a cow, crow or a dog! See what finally works for him. Maybe it will work for you too?

Do you have a favourite animal story? Tell us what it is in the comments, or on Twitter and Facebook!

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