Guided Participation
In our work, we are presently unable to find any person who can step into the programs and take on a session in spite or despite claims to being bibliophiles, in love with children’s books and children, wanting to always have a wagon of books and share them with all and multiple other claims of […]
Who can decorate the walls of the world better?
Who can decorate the walls of the world better than a butterfly ? Poem Avis Harley I have always loved this haiku for its simplicity and for the thoughts that linger. Who can decorate the walls of the world better, we might constantly ask. I find myself asking this question as I look around another […]
Summer Slides & Sea Saws
Research on reading achievement informs us that there is a significant loss of literacy during summer, impacting lower socio economic groups more than others, due to the presence of literacy resources and literacy engagement in the environment. Library programs rev up for the summer in serious attempts to combat this slide and at Bookworm, we […]
The Talking Bird
Talking is big at Bookworm and context often determines our choices of books. Barkha who works at Bookworm and talks too, brings bits of Kolkata to us every few months on her trips home.So, slowly our space has terracotta artefacts, we all own exquisite ’tant’ sarees, have gorged on ‘mishti doi’, got a group of […]
Drama Day 1
‘Early on a hot Sunday, five princesses and four princes set out across the kingdom of Bookworm to create their crowns, embellish their ornaments, listen to stories and figure out the process of finding a real princess! For — hours, we found ourselves atop horses, over peas, poring over books on space and watching a […]
Graphic Novel Find
I typically keep my biological bookworm son’s out of my blogging space for multiple reasons, but this post has to include them. Bear with me as I share my graphic, graphic novel find of the month ! My now 14 year old son, began to read very,very early through no fault of his own, but […]
LiS is the way our school year ended
Today, we have nearly completed our feedback on 6 of the 7 schools we work with, on the Libraries in Schools Program. We have had meetings scheduled with each school staff and principal and shared our, our struggles and the way forward for LiS to keep going to schools. As I reflect on these meetings, […]
Brown girl dreaming
I believe that to focus on larger issues, we must sometimes narrow our frame to the specific. I respond very strongly to books that do not characterise the ‘major’, preferring to dwell on the minor. So a title like brown girl dreaming Jacqueline Woodson, would draw me almost immediately. That it is a memoir in […]
Do You Read ?
While I stare longingly at a row of possible purchases in a book shop, knowing I have the means to buy a book but confused about which good to repose those means towards.. a work colleague asks me , “Do you really read all the books you buy ?” I was astounded both by the […]
India Public Libraries Conference 2015
The Princely State of Kolhapur passed a Public Library Act in 1945. Tamil Nadu as part of the Indian Union, passed the Indian Public Library Act in 1948, my own state of Goa, in 1993 and last week in Delhi, we gathered for the FIRST Indian Public Library Conference. We are inching our way into […]