The best part of spending time with kids is if you smile at them, sooner or later, even the shiest of kids will turn and smile back at you. No barriers, no divides, they don’t know what categories are. So they haven’t divided people into them… yet. So let’s catch the kids at that warm welcoming age when they can learn about different cultures and lifestyles, and can take such things in their stride as casually as they take their mother’s repeated request to stop throwing things around! Only books can take you through lives of people who look, live and believe differently than us. So here is a list of stories where beauty lies in the differences:

 

Where Did Your Dimples Go? By Radha HS and Kruttika Susarla

Have you ever tilted your head in all directions and stared hard at your parents trying to figure out how you look like them? Langlen didn’t have to look so hard. Her Manipuri mother and Tamil father were ready with all the answers her curious mind could think of! Available in ten Indian languages!

 

बारिश में क्या गाएँ? By Mala Kumar and Manisha Chaudhry

You can almost hear the earthy tones of a wind-swept Rajasthani voice in this story. And then a dinosaur comes in. No, seriously. See how these two contrasting elements literally make it rain in this story, translated in French, Italian and Japanese too!

 

My Car By Phidi Pulu

He loves his car. Angry mother or broken teeth, come what may, he will drive it everywhere. Take a ride to the moon and the stars with Khaidi. Read about his car in Telegu and Konkani too!

 

Sam's Christmas Present By Annie Besant and Alicia Souza

It’s Christmas! And what do most kids care about during Christmas? Presents! Sam has been looking for his present…. In every corner of the house. Will you help him? Available in Hindi and Marathi!

 

 

Chuskit Goes to School! By Sujatha Padmanabhan and Madhuvanti Anantharajan

This here is a heart-warming one. Chuskit wants to go to school. Seems simple enough for most of us reading this through our digital devices. But for a girl on a wheelchair with the rough landscape of Ladakh, this basic wish soon becomes a matter of privilege. Read how one smart and kind gesture of a little boy helped Chuskit go to school.

 

 

The Boink Mystery By Mala Kumar, Manisha Chaudhry and Soumya Menon

You get a huge mixing pot of traits, complexities and cultures when you look at a basic classroom. The Boink Mystery translated in Bengali, Kannada and other languages, will speak to you through a child’s perspective of a cluttered world; it will even speak to you through a small blue alien!

 

How Old is Muttajji? By Roopa Pai and Kaveri Gopalakrishnan

Grandparents are old. Sure. But HOW old exactly? Too many grandparents around us don’t know their exact age. When Putta and Putti found out that their sweet Muttajji doesn’t know her age, they decided to embark upon an investigation that led them through some of the most fascinating chapters in Indian history. Read this popular story and be enthralled in Bengali, Gujarati, Tamil, Marathi and many more languages!

 

Susheela's Kolams By Sridala Swami and Priya Kuriyan

Imagine making kolams so pretty, so popular, that they make their way to the skies. Susheela is exceptionally proud of her kolams, now that even the Air Force has taken special interest in them! Read this story in 9 languages and enter her visually beautiful world that’s tied together with traditions.

 

Mangoes And Mischief By Sreedevi Gopakumar and Sahitya Rani

You know how they say that when we are hungry, we eat like a monster. So what happens when an actual monster gets hungry? Maangasura, the lover of Mangoes and all Mango meals, is here! Moidootty and Malu must gather their wits… and lots of mangoes… to break his curse. Read this latest upload on StoryWeaver to find out if they succeed!

 

First House By Nabanita Deshmukh and Phidi Pulu

Our journey of increasing our comforts is possibly never-ending. We didn’t always have four walls around us to keep us warm and a roof over our heads to keep the sun and rain away. Then how was the first house made? This story, set in present day Arunachal Pradesh, imagines the answer to that question, and even involves the beautiful creatures of that area. Read in Tamil and Kannada too!

 

I am Tashi By ROGPA NGO, Dhasa

Want to see the stunning landscape and lifestyle of Tibetans through a nine year old’s perspective? Let’s take you through the Tibetan Himalayas, meet some Buddhist pilgrims on the way, and have some tea and momos too! Read this beautifully illustrated story that’s written by our community member in English and Tibetan.

Do you have a favourite story that talks about different kinds of good? Tell us what it is in the comments, or on Twitter and Facebook!

 

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Joeanna Rebello writes about how free libraries are making readers of children in small towns and villages for The Times of India. She also mentions StoryWeaver and our Freedom to Read campaign, and highlights the work being done by our outreach partner the Agastya International Foundation and community member Tenzin Dhargyal. 

"For Subramanya Shastri, project manager at Agastya International Foundation which has established libraries in 70 villages in Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, the goal is to get children to first read and write fluently in their mother tongue before progressing to other languages. "Each library has 150 to 200 books for grades three to ten, in three to four languages based on the local demographic," says Shastri. Unfortunately, books written in regional languages are limited, and translations (from dominant languages) are few he observes.

It's a problem that seems to have found one solution at least. Last September on World Literacy Day, Pratham Books, the not-for-profit children's publisher, launched an open-source online platform making available 800 stories in 24 languages, including 20 STEM titles.

The platform, Story Weaver, provides tools to enable readers to translate stories in different languages and scripts, and even rewrite available stories for higher or lower reading levels. It now has over 2,000 stories in 51 languages including Tibetan, Sanskrit, Banjara and Gondi. Their most recent campaign, Freedom to Read, launched this World Literacy Day on September 8, Pratham Books pledges to add 15 new languages to the list.

A few months ago, Tenzin Dhargyal, an English teacher at the Tibetan Children's Village School in Suja, Himachal Pradesh, started translating Story Weaver's works in Tibetan. "Most of the books donated to us are in English," he says. To encourage reading in their mother tongue, and supplement the stock of 33 books he and his colleagues have translated on Story Weaver, Dhargyal plans to assign older school children with 'translation' homework."

You can read the rest of the article here.

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Every 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. 

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