“The whale went to Washington wearing wigs”, “A rat rode a raft on a rooster’s rasam”, “Manu monkey made a mess of the map and meandered to Mangolia”…these alliterations were but a few of the verses penned by budding authors, aged between six and 15, at the writing workshop, organised by Book Mark Library and Activity Centre.
Aparna Raman, the founder of Timbuktoo, a Bangalore-based children’s books publishing house, conducted a writing workshop for the kids.
“It turned out to be such a fun exercise!,” said Shanu, a participant, who said she had learnt about alliteration in school, but had never tried writing them herself.
She loved the idea of hunting for words starting with the same letter and writing funny lines.
Aparna also asked the children to draw. “Ï want them to get wacky. The pictures actually help them to come up with funny ideas and visualise their verse better,” she explained.
A professional in advertising and design and a Kathalaya-certified storyteller, Aparna used to take creative writing classes for children in Bangalore.
The idea of Timbuktoo took shape during one of those classes in 2013.
“I asked the children to imagine themselves as being a song, a shoe or a book. The output was so fabulous that we thought the seven best works had to be printed as a book.” They organised a pilot launch in Bangalore that all prominent media houses attended.
“The response was amazing. Both the kids and parents were thrilled. That’s when I realised that this was what I wanted to do every year. So since 2013, we have published 24 authors, aged between six and 12.” In 2014, they brought out a book called Whackylicious penned by 15 young authors.
Illustrators, who are graduates and faculty members from National Institute of Design, form the core publishing team of Timbuktoo. Right from writing and designing the book to marketing it , Timbuktoo takes care of all stages of publishing.
Their next plan is to create merchandise for children’s books like t-shirts, mugs, and bags that would carry the picture of the characters in their books.
Aparna has international clients from Australia, Singapore, Sri Lanka and England. Timbuktoo has come out with an anthology of short stories by 15 children from Colombo. “I urged the children to pen stories anchored to the local flavours such as mythology, art and archaeology. We didn’t actually meet the kids till the launch. Editing, proofreading, the launch…everything was planned through a flurry of emails and long Skype sessions.”In the end, children were so happy and excited to lay their hands on the warm copies of the books at the press launch in Colombo, she said.
Even though there is a growing demand for young adult fiction in the country, very few publish what children write.
“That might partly because the customers for these books are mostly the parents of the children. But, even if adults write children’s fiction, there is a limit to imagining their worlds. Books written by children offer us a better glimpse. Their stories are any day more interesting and honest.”
Aparna’s next project is to go to the interiors of India and discover the stories of the children there. “I want to uncover the unheard stories in these places. It could be in any language. We would love to translate and bring them out as a collection.”
She also wants to create a blog that will serve as a database for all the children’s writing in the world. “A ten-year-old in India should be able to experience the world of his peer in any other part of the world; such a venture can lead to interesting cultural exchanges,” she feels. For more details about Timbuktoo, visit http://www.timbuktoopublishing.com/
