Most of StoryWeaver's digital-first books explore STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) topics in interesting and fun ways. Some of you may remember some of our amazing STEM titles from last year: 'How Old is Muttajji?', 'Jadav and the Tree-Place', 'Up World, Down World', 'Dum Dum-a-Dum Biryani!', etc. We’re happy to announce that these are also being printed early next year!

“This year, we’ve tried to create books that are simpler than last year, based on conversations with our outreach partners. Simpler does not mean easier, of course, and in many ways it has been more challenging. Fortunately, we’ve been working closely with some of the finest editors, writers, illustrators, art directors and translators who have helped us create a set of wonderful books. While the aim of each book is to inform and educate, the idea is also to nurture the innate sense of wonder in children and in turn, encourage them to explore further,” shares Yamini Vijayan, who anchors content creation for StoryWeaver. 

Exciting ideas through exciting partnerships

This year, we hope to widen the lens through which children look at the world around them, with stories that explore topics like space, types of houses, trash, seasonal food, subtraction, evolution, simple machines and even toilets! 

From author-illustrator Rajiv Eipe's book on simple machines

These books have been created in collaboration with 4 Guest Editors and 2 Art Directors. Award-winning author Roopa Pai has steered the books on math, Bijal Vachharajani – a journalist who writes on nature and the environment – has given shape and form to the books on environment, author-illustrator Vinayak Varma, former Editor and Art Director of Brainwave Magazine, has helped create fun science books and author-editor Payal Dhar has made technology and engineering appealing to young minds. With illustrations being such an integral aspect of these books, we were keen to involve experts in the field and so these books have been art-directed by talented illustrators Kaveri Gopalakrishnan and Vinayak Varma. We’re excited to say that some of the most promising authors and illustrators have contributed to the creation of these 20 titles. 

Priya Kuriyan brings Neema to life in vivid colours in 'What's Neema Eating Today?' by Bijal Vachharajani

In Math, we have books on subtraction, patterns of similarity and dissimilarity, division and estimation. Needless to say, all these have been explained through simple stories that show how we use math in our everyday lives and that it isn’t restricted to our textbooks alone. At Pratham Books, we have always realized how important it is to have conversations about the environment to children. This year, we have chosen to focus on trash, seasonal food, migration and earthquakes. Themes in science that we have decided to ‘storify’ are simple machines, virology, evolution and the lives of gharials. We’re certain that early readers will become more enthusiastic about science after reading these enchanting stories. You’d think that children’s stories on technology and engineering can get a bit boring. Well, you’ll change your mind when you read our stories on space, wheels, flying, types of houses and toilets. In addition to these STEM books, we have two moving stories on emotional intelligence, one on anger and the other on perseverance. 

Here's what we've digitally published so far:

Environment

What's Neema Eating Today? Neema loves to eat seasonally, and you will to now!

Science

Ammachi's Amazing Machines  How simple can simple machines be? Ammachi's here to teach you!

Apu's Giant Earthquake: what's causing those tremors?

Sniffles, in which a girl spreads her cold during a football match. 

Ghum-Ghum Gharial's Glorious Adventure, a young Gharial's adventure in the Ganga. 

Math

One by Two Share some biryani and gulab jamuns and learn a thing or two about fractions!

More or Less? Need to Guess! How many sweet boxes do the wedding guests need? Guestimation to the rescue!

I Spy! How many children are left at a birthday party? 

Same-same or different?, showing the friendship between a Sparrow and a Snake and also explaining the idea of sorting. 

Technology

Gul in Space: a girl explores outer space. 

In keeping with our commitment to creating good quality multilingual content for children, each of the 20 titles will be translated to Hindi, Marathi, Kannada and Tamil. (Plus, don’t forget, on StoryWeaver you can translate the stories to a language YOU’RE fluent in and help us spread the joy of reading to even more children.) The development of these 100 books (20 titles in 5 languages) has been supported by Oracle.

 

To say that we’re excited about these new stories is an understatement! We cannot wait to share them with readers, young and old. Happy reading!

Be the first to comment.

---

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.) 

Be the first to comment.

---

With our mission of ‘a book in every child’s hand’, it is our constant endeavour to take more books and stories to more children. With StoryWeaver, our open-source, multilingual digital repository of children’s stories, access to good quality reading material has become much easier. Children and educators can read 14000+ stories in over 180 languages! 

One of the ways in which we engage directly with organisations and educators is by conducting StoryWeaver workshops with them. The day-long session focuses on why reading is important and explores the platform in detail. Participants also get dedicated time to try the platform on their own and engage with the Pratham Books team and network with other participants. The workshops participation is free of cost, but on a first come first serve basis. 

We are planning two workshops in June & July. One is Mangalore and the other one in Raipur. If you are an organisation that works with under-served children wanting to bring more stories to them and engage with StoryWeaver, please fill the form here and we’ll contact you with further details.

Interested organisations based in and around Mangalore, please sign up here. Interested organisations based in and around Raipur , please sign up here. 

If you want to know more about our efforts to engage with organisations or have anything else to say, please write to us at  [email protected]. 

Be the first to comment.

---