StoryWeaver celebrates Wildlife Week 2021!
Posted by Julia M on February 15, 2022It is undeniable that wildlife plays an important role in maintaining the ecological balance of nature. Disruptions to the wilderness can negatively impact the ecosystem as a whole. Preserving the natural environment is therefore vital.
We have rounded up some of our favourite books highlighting wildlife. Check out the excerpts and click on the image to read the books.
‘Flippy the Flowerpecker’ is a level 1 book written and photographed by Garima Bhatia.
In this book, Flippy the tiny flowerpecker visits a eucalyptus tree to find a meal, but a surprise is in store for her!
‘Our Friends in the Wild’ is a level 2 book written by Ananta Prasad Wagle, illustrated by Samit Shrestha, and translated by Shannon David.
Throughout time, people have shared a strong relationship with animals in nature. This non-fiction poem explores the many ways that animals help humans.
‘Tiger, Tiger, Where Are You?’ is a level 2 book written by Mujahid Khan and illustrated by Manjari Chakravarti.
In the book, a tiger researcher is out looking for tiger hair and poop as part of his study. He finds plenty of signs of the tiger, but where is the big cat? After all, there are so many ways to see a tiger without seeing a tiger.
'The great Rifasa' is a level 3 book written by Rohini Nilekani and illustrated by Sangeetha Kadur.
Nothing seemed right in the Kabini forest — the monsoon hadn’t come and the human tourists in their safari jeeps seemed to have disappeared as well. The animals of Kabini get together to begin their own safari. A fun story, from a unique perspective, about the far-reaching impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.
‘How to Be an Otter’ is a level 3 book written by Nisarg Prakash and illustrated by Rohit Kelkar.
Listen in to find out more about these wonderful river creatures, as an otter passes on wisdom to a group of otter pups.
A level 3 book, ‘Fly Safe, Godavan’ is written by Cara Tejpal and illustrated by Sanjana Desai.
In this book, Rania is determined to keep the little Godavan chick and her Ma safe. But there are so many threats to the survival of the Great Indian Bustard.
‘Kanchha, the Rhino’ is a level 3 book written by Shilpi Pradhan, illustrated by Abin Shrestha, and translated by Shannon David
This is the story of a little rhino who lives in a big grassland. He loves to explore, but one day he strays too far from his mother and gets lost. Read on to find out how he gets out of trouble.
‘Turtle Story’ is a level 4 book written by Kartik Shanker and illustrated by Maya Ramaswamy.
Under cover of darkness, baby olive ridley turtles hatch from sun-warmed eggs on remote beaches. One of them, the little hatchling who is the narrator of our story, is delighted to make it across the beach and into the ocean without losing her way or being captured by predators. But can our little olive ridley survive the dangers of the ocean? Find out in this charming life story of an olive ridley turtle, and meet several other interesting creatures along the way.
‘Moonlight in the Sea’ is a level 4 story written by Kartik Shanker and illustrated by Prabha Mallya.
Fatima grows up on an idyllic island in the Lakshadweep, watched over by Nihla, the moon. She falls in love with the underwater world of colourful corals, fascinating fish, mysterious manta rays, grizzled old turtles and dancing dolphins. One day, in a terrible storm, she gets lost at sea. Join Fatima on her incredible adventure on remote islands with wonderful marine creatures.
Learn more about the people and places that inspired the making of 'Moonlight in the Sea', in this blog post by Kartik Shanker, author, ecologist, and founder trustee of the Dakshin Foundation.
A level 4 story, ‘Wildlife in a City Pond’ is written by Ashish Kothari and illustrated by Sangeetha Kadur.
Wetlands in any city are seen mostly as wasteland, waiting to be built over. It takes a tireless environmentalist to show us what city ponds really are – magically rich ecosystems worth preserving. Based on a real-life experience, here is a story that introduces us to the delightful fauna and flora in the urban landscape.
‘Gyalmo, the Queen of the Mountains’ is a level 4 book written by Ranjini Murali and illustrated by Komal Jain.
Koyna is in Spiti Valley trying to spot a snow leopard with her friend Lobzang. Gyalmo, the snow leopard, watches from a distance as they try their best to spot her.
Read all about the author’s fascination with the mountains and why she wrote a children's book about snow leopards here. Ranjini Murali, the author, is the Conservation Scientist at the Snow Leopard Trust.
Come, explore the natural quirks and intricacies of nature and its wild inhabitants with StoryWeaver!
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Navigating Indic fonts and software: A translator's advice
Posted by Remya Padmadas on June 28, 2016Kumarika Mohanty is an Electrical Engineer and an Infosys staffer. She loves writing about causes that are close to her heart. She is very passionate about her mother tongue Odia and believes in making good use of Social Media channels to do her bit in propagating the use of Odia by the people who speak the language.
Here, she writes about Indic language software and tools, and how they have helped her work as a translator. You can read this post in Odia, here.
The first time I saw Odia fonts typed on a computer screen was in the late 90's. My dad had ordered Shree Lipi Oriya software. Though he got accustomed to the English key equivalents for Odia letters, a key issue that he faced with this software was its portability. The entire typed text (at times the entire volume of a book) was printed and then sent to type setters who used to retype the entire content, if the same software was not available with them. Though, tedious in this aspect, he still uses this software and has gotten it upgraded over the years.
Kumarika's Reccomendations
Few years back, I came across Indic fonts in Unicode. A boon, I must add, for people who want to write in Indian languages. I instantly installed 'Type Oriya' app on my Windows Phone. I am sure, it is available for iOS & Android too. This app lets me tweet in Unicode Odia and I have been able to connect to numerous Odias across the globe, like @nidhi_budha, @wearebbsr, @BBSRBuzz, @akala_kushmanda to name a few. I have also come across these blogs in Odia/ about Odia that I thoroughly enjoy - https://akalakushmaanda.
When I got associated with Pratham Books last year, I came across couple of more online editors for Odia. I am comfortable with two online editors- Branah and Tamilcube. I have to use two editors as one overcomes the shortcomings of the other. One striking issue is, due to a major use of 'juktakhyaras' (letters made from various combinations of vowels and consonants). While Branah allows 'juktakhyaras' that are not valid/used in Odia, Tamilcube does not let me create a couple of valid 'juktakhyaras'!
While I was interacting with Team StoryWeaver, regarding this blog, they mentioned Google Input Tools. I gave it a try and I find it to be very helpful. The interface is quite user friendly, in case of Google and it also eliminates the possibility of making spelling mistakes. I would like to thank StoryWeaver for introducing this to me.
Last month, I was involved in translation of a particular Wikipedia document. Here, I got to know of an online translation tool - MediaWiki. Though I am yet to use it, I am aware that it can translate smaller chunks of texts from a source language to target language. Such a tool would be very useful to translators, I am sure.
This webpage has a good collection of online editors and softwares available -http://odia.odisha.gov.in/it-
You can read some of Kumarika's translations to Odia on StoryWeaver here and you can follow her on Twitter @kumariika
Do you have a favourite software on online tool for translation? Tweet us @pbstoryweaver or write to us [email protected] and tell us what it is!
Be the first to comment.One Day, Many Stories!
Posted by Remya Padmadas on September 23, 2016Every year, the entire Pratham Books family (including our lovely community) gears up for the biggest celebration of the year – our ‘One Day, One Story' campaign. Celebrated on the occasion of International Literacy Day every year, the campaign aims to take stories to as many children possible on a single day throughout the country (and beyond!)
This initiative is part of the Pratham Books' Champions program where we encourage our community of volunteers to conduct reading sessions. These sessions are conducted free of cost and mostly with children from under-served communities. The Pratham Books' Champions program is a one-of its kind volunteer program that has scaled to a national & international level with more and more volunteers joining in each year. For this year’s edition of ‘One Day One Story’, volunteers from Oracle Bangalore joined us to take stories into classrooms, thanks to our partners Mantra4Change.
On the bright morning of September 10th, about eight volunteers from Oracle’s Bangalore facility reached the Nirmal Vidyalaya on Hosa Road. The school had an ongoing Teacher’s Day celebration which included dances and skits put up by students, a friendly cricket match between students and teachers and of course our storytelling sessions ☺ The volunteers divided themselves in six groups and headed to groups of children from Grades 4th, 5th and 6th. The story of 'The Elephant Bird' by Arefa Tehsin, Sonal Goyal and Sumit Sakhuja enthralled children of Grade 5 as they wondered if brave Munia could save the giant bird! In the Grade 4 classroom, children were actively participating in identifying the different seeds they find in the fruits they eat as they went on a seed collecting journey with Tooka, Poi and Inji in 'Let's Go Seed Collecting' by Neha Sumitran and Archana Sreenivasan. In Grade 6, the children kept interrupting volunteer Senthil to confirm and re-confirm if Jadav ‘Mulai’ Payeng in 'Jadav and the Tree-Place' by Vinayak Varma is a real man who actually built an entire forest on his own. The story telling sessions were followed by impromptu singing sessions, chit-chat with the students and a lot of idea and noise exchange!
Here is a short video that captures the day that features
Hear Khushboo Awasthi, Co-Founder of our partner organisation Mantra4Change talking about the importance of such sessions for the children underlining the exposure the corporate volunteers bring into classrooms.
Meet Sandhya, a first time storytelling volunteer from Oracle and her experience with the One Day One Story event. –
Our sincere thanks to all the volunteers from Oracle, children and teachers of Nirmala Vidyalaya and the Mantra4Change team in making this session memorable!
Together we can take a story to every child in every corner of the country.
Here are a few pics from the event.
