Soumya Menon is an animation filmmaker and illustrator trained at the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad. She likes to travel often, and try her hand at other occupations such as painting walls. Soumya shares how she took Reeti from 'Reeti and Mithu' from a rough sketch to a young girl bursting with colour. You can follow Soumya on Twitter, Instagram and her blog.​

I wanted to set the initial scenes for this story indoors- in small, confined spaces, to try and draw a parallel between Reeti being trapped indoors (as she's moping at home during the summer holidays) and Mithu in his cage.

In the last series of images towards the end of the story, I wanted to introduce a sense of flight and movement, as Reeti returns to school and her friends (not mentioning Mithu and what happens to him as I don't want to give away the ending here!)

 

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September is a special month for us at Pratham Books, especially September 8th! International Literacy Day, not only marks our annual storytelling event One Day, One Story, but it is also the day StoryWeaver was launched. 

When we launched, our goal was  to create a participatory framework where content creators and users could collaborate with each other to create joyful reading material in multiple languages. We believed this would have a multiplier effect to address the scarcity of multilingual reading resources that exists in India.

The last two years have been an amazing journey. When StoryWeaver was launched, we offered 800 stories in 24 languages. Today, the platform is a buzzing hub of over 4700 in 91 languages. What makes StoryWeaver a truly special place though is our community. The authors, illustrators, translators, editors, art directors, teachers, librarians, literacy organisations and parents who are helping Pratham Books strive towards our mission of 'a book in every child's hand.'

It's the stories, videos and photographs from these passionate and committed folks that keep us going. Non-profits like Suchana and the Azad India Foundation, translating stories to tribal languages and dialects for the children they work with. Organisations like Pragat Shikshan Sanstha, Tamarind Tree and Akanksha curating reading lists and creating digital libraries for teachers and students. Edtech companies like mGuru who gamify our content for mobile learning apps, and Bookshare who is creating audio and braille books for print impared students. These are just a few examples of  the amazing things openly licensing content can achieve. And how can we not mention the many individuals who are creating magic on the platform every day with the stories they create and translate?

To each of you who are a part of our community, a big, big, big THANK YOU! 

Here's to more stories, in more languages, reaching more children! 

 

 

 

 

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by Priyanka Sivaramakrishnan

Following the success of our Readalong feature and the StoryWeaver Hindi YouTube channel, we bring to you an exclusive channel for your favourite English stories, the StoryWeaver English YouTube channel! These vides are created to bring stories to life with their audio-visual engagement, making your kids fall in love with the tales. Now you can watch your favourite stories like Goloo, the Circle, Susheela's Kolams, Smile Please, Moon and Cap, and many more, with two new videos being added each week!

Illustration by Aditi Dilip from Look Up! by Aditi Dilip

Aimed at our youngest readers, these stories are mostly Levels 1 and 2, with the videos running no longer than five minutes to make sure that we don't lose the child's attention. Similar to the Readalong feature on the StoryWeaver page, these stories have been carefully handpicked to ensure that they include repeat sounds and words, that are enjoyable to read aloud, have eye-catching illustrations, and a whole lof of pazzaz. 

Here at StoryWeaver, we are always looking to see how we can make the reading experience better, what we can give you to help you children revel in the joy of stories. These YouTube videos have been designed with enjoyable background music, a 'natural' narrative coiced by professional artists, and synchronized highlighted text running throughout the story. The act of watching the video, listening to the pronunciations, and following the words allows for easy language acquisition by the child. 

To get started on a fun-filled reading experience, subscribe to the all-new StoryWeaver English YouTube channel here. 

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