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Childrens' corner

The NCERT Book Fair is a quiet affair with loads of good books and well worth a weekend visit

PHOTO: SUSHIL KUMAR VERMA

GOOD BEGINNING There are more fairs to come from NCERT

When a banner announced a book fair in the NCERT campus on Banashankari Ring Road, one went in expecting a lot of textbooks. Instead, the fair, the brainchild of NCERT Director Krishna Kumar, has different kinds of books from over a dozen publishers.

"We want children, teachers, parents and others to see the quality and quantity of books available with the NCERT and other publishers. People only think of textbooks when they think of NCERT. But we have books on vocational training, teaching methodologies, research papers and so much more to offer," says Vipin Dewan, Business Development Manager, Bangalore.

For the uninitiated, NCERT is the acronym for National Council for Educational Research and Training. When politicians aren't bringing the organisation to the limelight with demands for change in the historical content or something equally pointless, the organisation quietly goes about its task of supplying textbooks, supplementary readers, audio and video materials, journals, research monographs and other publications to thousands of institutions. The NCERT Book Fair is the first that the organisation has planned so far in the country. "We have several pleasant surprises in store for readers in the coming months, and we hope they will make the best use of our resources," adds Dewan. Not-for-profit organisations like National Book Trust (NBT), Children's Book Trust, and Pratham Books have a range of low-priced, high quality books. Other publishers include Scholastic, Tulika, Goodbooks, Viva, Pearl, Pacific, Oxford, Macmillan and Orient Longman. While there are plenty of books for children, both fiction and non-fiction, there are also several books that B.Ed students, librarians and parents would find useful. NCERT has books on mushroom cultivation, dairy farming, and other vocations that are very low-priced and therefore useful to the people who would want to take up these vocations.

Oxford's Bookworms List has 25 graded books of fiction, five each for classes three to eight.

Look out for NCERT's Teacher Guides on Language, Mathematics and Social Sciences, NBT's Compendium on scholarships, freeships, educational loans, study in India and abroad, and Macmillan's dictionaries. The English Dictionary for Advanced Learners, for instance, is very user friendly. "All the entries have been described using just 2,000 most easy words in the language," says Danesh, of Macmillan. "One doesn't need to look up the meaning of a word used to describe another word!" he adds.

The dictionary has won the Duke of Edinburgh Award and the ELT-British Council Innovation Award. The NCERT Book Fair is small and comfortable. No screaming banners, no shrill sales pitch or cut-throat discounts, pleasant surroundings and no eatery stalls to divert your attention. Open between 10.30 a.m. and 6.30 p.m., the fair is on till Sunday evening at the NCERT Campus. Their address is: 108, 100 Ft Road, Hosakerahalli Extension, Banashankari III Stage, Bangalore 560085. Call 26725740.

MALA KUMAR

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