If you associate children’s literature with cutesy stories of fairies and wizards, think again. Kavita Gupta Sabharwal, Managing Trustee of Neev Trust, debunks this myth. Children’s books are equally, if not more, interesting than books for adults. To know more attend the Neev Children Literature Festival, which will house more than 4,000 titles and host celebrated authors such as Sudha Murthy, Jahnavi Barua, Roopa Pai, Jane Desuza, among others.
A lot of thought has gone into curating the festival, which is evident when we speak to Kavita, who is a voracious reader. “For the festival, we have a diversity of authors such as Paro Anand, who writes reality fiction, Ranjit Lal who has written some fascinating stories, and Timeri N. Murari, a writer of historical fiction.”
Contrary to popular opinion, children read a lot more now, and every attempt is being made to encourage them to do so. Kavita states: “We want to create conversations around what gets children to read. How do you want children to spend their time? We want children to be reflective and engage with knowledge. How do you create that? This is what the festival is about.”
Why is reading essential for children? Kavita explains succinctly. “In school, they spend a lot of time writing. For every hour they spend writing, they should spend two hours reading to gain knowledge and crystallise their thoughts.”
One of the sessions will have Tom Watson talk about sensitising children towards Dark Fiction and how ‘Children Are Smarter Than Us’. “The question is, is there something wrong in reading dark themes? No. But should it be the only thing? Probably not. How much, then, do you censor? Dark themes change across cultures. Many fairy tales have been adapted to dark fiction. There is a wide variety under dark fiction, from dystopian literature to sick-lit.”
Day 1 (September 15) will have workshops, by invitation, for 11 schools. Day 2 (September 16) will have panel discussions and author book reading sessions open to the public. Elucidating on some of them, Kavita says: “There is a session on‘how games make kids smarter’ by Rajesh Rao and Anand Ramachandran. ‘Trend versus tradition’ has well-known writers and an international librarian on the panel. We also have a panel in which a parent and child will be in conversation.”
The festival will be held at Neev Academy, Yemalur Campus. Visit: http://neevliterature festival.org/ .
