Photo albums still seem to hold a fascination for children. Perhaps it has to do with recognising people and places, and perhaps it has to do with some progression in time. To me, this book did both. The pictures of familiar birds, insects, animals and even a snake helped me reconnect with the immediate world around [...]
Continue Reading: The Coral Tree – Mamata Pandya and Pankaj Gorana
1. It promotes a culture of manipulating adults, fooling them, tricking friends, bullying them for fun, etc. through the main character. So when a young reader reads, they could turn this character into a role model and mimic that culture. Some parijathas thought this too… 2. Good literature should have langauge with metaphors, imagery, sound, [...]
Sitting snuggled in a shelter between Sitla and Odakhan in the Kumaun Mountains, is a wondrous library. It is free, open and used happily by adults and children from neighbouring hills and dales. The couple whose brainwave this is built a house at Satholi and decided they would also run a library for the neighbourhood. [...]
Recently I spent two marvellous months at the Brockwood Park School in Hampshire in England. My mission : To make the library a living space for staff, students and other users. So the question was: Could I do it ? The school has international students from ages 14 to 18 and has a very unusual [...]
We have recently worked on a Manual for Running a Library, which you may download from here. The introduction is posted here. Introduction A school without an open and active library is like an organism with no core. S.R. Ranganathan, the founder of the library movement in India calls the school library, “Truly the heart [...]
A brief description of me on the Pratham blog referred to me as an occasional blogger. Well! I have to do something about that. So here goes and if you are bored, so be it.
Thanks for the article. It was a coincidence that we came across it and we enjoyed reading it. It also reminded us of the time a couple of years ago. We were working at a boarding school in Dehradun. Mrs Sukumar had just taken over the primary section of the school and had introduced some [...]
Continue Reading: In response to “A Library In The Mountains”
We began by setting a Treasure Hunt in the library. Clues were set up in various books, artefacts and journals for them to find. Skill involved solving the clues as well as familiarity with the library and its collection. Two children presented book talks which helped highlight and introduce those books to the others. Along [...]
On 27 June, Patara was invited by Suresh Jairam’s/Visual Art Collective’s studio, 1 Shantiroad, to participate in a multimedia exhibition on Tibet. The three-day event included the ceremonial drawing of a sand mandala, film screenings, discussions, talks, poetry readings, music concerts, all on the theme of Tibet. There was also the launch and release of [...]
Continue Reading: Update from the Patara Exhibition on Tibet
“Can you help us set up a library?” was the request from Chirag School in the Kumaon Himalayas at Uttarakhand. “On a clear day, you can see the entire Nanda Devi range, as well as Trishul and Panchachuli from around the corner,” the letter added. What was I waiting for? An assignment dear to my [...]