Book Fair
“It’s the books you read when you’re young that stay with you always.” - J. K. Rowling
Reading opens the doors to discovery – discovery of new places, new situations, new perspectives and a new YOU. This drive to lead our young minds to the road to self-discovery NPS KRM organizing a ‘Virtual Book Fair’ for students of Grades 1-8 from 24th July- 2nd August. As a part of the book fair, storytelling sessions were conducted on 25th July for Grades 1-5. Ms. Preminda Langer, our storyteller for Grades 1 and 2, read stories for children and enacted them with props, making the session lively and interesting. Ms. Samita Basu, our storyteller for grades 3 & 4, narrated a short story titled - 'Dragon wants a friend'.
The students weaved their own dragon stories during the interactive session. Interesting prompts like the imaginary situation, fantasy places, friends of the dragon and its habits stirred their creativity. Grade 5 had an author talk by Ms. Varsha Seshan, a children’s author who has 19 books to her credit. She began with a brief observation and memory exercise where she showed the children an image for a minute and then asked them to recollect the details of the image. She then introduced her latest book, Dragonflies, Jigsaws and Seashells. She read out a story from her collection and conducted an engaging activity for the children.
The author spoke about the three kinds of stories in her collection – rural, urban and fantastic. Excerpts from each kind of story were read out and children were encouraged to read every day, surround themselves with books, and write regularly. She shared her journey as a writer, highlighting the importance of creating a discipline around writing as it is easy to start a story; it is much more difficult to finish it! After a fun jigsaw puzzle activity and a quiz, there was an interactive session, where the children asked questions about reading, writing and where to find inspiration. The children were very participative, eager and curious. Interaction during Q and A session was very fulfilling!