Sandipani Library is a tucked away in Sattari taluka, at the edge of a village, near the river. It is a little library, neat as a pin and waiting. We met Mr Suresh Zarekar , the librarian at the Goa River Draw workshop and he welcomed us to his community library.
We decided that we must visit as a part of our Outreach project through Bookworm.
So a team was formed and a long drive later, the Bookworm quartet arrived at Sandipani Library to find 18 children ages of 5 – 10 waiting for them. Both girls and boys were seated on chairs in the library wondering what the program would be like. Mr Suresh was there to assist and welcome and in time even participate in the events that unfolded.
Within a few minutes Stephie and the team had them out of their chairs into a circle, passing claps, introducing themselves with actions and then moving onto browsing books.
The children were led outside to the verandah and imagine their surprise to find rows and rows of books waiting for them. Rohini and Pranita laid out the books like gifts and encouraged the children to pick them and browse. Young ones loved the textured books and the surprise of flaps. Little older children realised that not all books were in English and that Marathi story books were a part of the collection and they quickly began to hunt for these treasures. Before the realisation that this may end, Stephie did a book care session and guided the children towards library cards.
Imagine their surprise when they found out that all you had to do to take a book home was write your name on the card ? That simple joy became more exciting with stickers, coloured pens and creative energy that enabled each one to decorate their library cards and personalise them.
No outreach visit is complete without a story and so Stephie and Terence formed a story circle and read aloud Handa’s Surprise. The long necked image on the cover was identified as a snake but on learning that the setting was Africa and seeing the whole image, the animal quickly got names an ostrich and so it is with story. Seamlessly some learning takes place in the animated atmosphere of a story circle. Since Eileen Browne’s stunning picture book of Handa is replete with fruit from Africa – each fruit was carried to the story circle and the children identified both the image and the actual fruit. At the end of the story that includes a surprise, the Bookworm team had a surprise for the children of Sandipani library – they made fruit salad with all of them and sat down to a happy feast.
Surprises are inevitable in the library and we hope to return to Sandipani to spread book joy and know that the children have been borrowing books from the box left behind for them.
