Stories Connect Us
Social distancing in the library has resulted in empty library rooms, forlorn passages, a quiet hall and the depressing realisation that my day is empty without the children. I am struck by how much of my thinking and doing is because of the interactions that children and adults bring into my library work and just […]
I Remember the Stories
No matter what the grief, its weight, we are obliged to carry it. These are the first two lines of a poem by Dorianne Laux titled ‘For the Sake of Strangers’. I retrieve those lines here and more in this post as I attempt to share a rather singular story that emerged out […]
Training and Mentoring Program – Workshop 3
At the start of this, March 2019, we received a Grant from the British Council under the English Language Training and Mentoring Scheme to pilot a ‘ teacher – training’ program for primary school teachers. We have organised these trainings along with our Cipla Foundation supported work with schools and are piloting a Training and […]
A Geography of Visitors – A Vision Renewed
I love the idea of people walking into a library space and this year at Bookworm the numbers were high. We are in the old quarter of Panjim between the historic fountain and the legendary chapel and we are a library. So people do pop in and browse, walk through the rooms appreciate our work […]
Being Gandhi
Written by Paro Anand Pictures by Priya Kuriyan Published by Harper Collins Children’s Books Like Chandrasekar, the 13 year old protagonist in the story – many of us feel that we have notionally reduced the month of October to remembering Gandhi as an ideal or a symbol of ‘freedom’ through school program – projects – […]
Bringing Teachers into Library Practice
At Bookworm, our approach has been to work with children. This was not a strategic decision, but an organic one. It emerged from the simple truth, that children are open, receptive, warm, welcoming and critical, story worlds make immediate sense, they don’t need to be ‘taught’. Ursula LeGuin writes, “ Children have a seemingly innate […]
Reading Lila’s Loose Tooth
It sat there upon the New Arrivals shelf in the library, not quite fitting between different sized books, slightly askew in its place and almost nudging itself to me. Lila’s Loose Tooth it read , by Mamata Nainy and Habib Ali. All new ! I was on the calendar to facilitate story time for our […]
Exploring Partition in the Library
“Partition with a capital P signifies that this was a big event, “ said L, all of 13 years who was one of my participants in a Unit Study at Bookworm that was focusing on – The Partition. Ten children between 12 and 14 years gathered together every Wednesday for two hours over three months to […]
Book Recommendations
As an exercise in building our confidence around recommendations and inspiring conversations amongst readers, we have been hosting a series of weekly recommendation exercise at Bookworm. Team members recommend books to each other and we listen to a bunch of book talks every Monday on these recommendations. It is interesting to see what we are […]
Almost Trapped
At Bookworm our vision in practice is to take stories to children in diverse contexts to engender what Pat Mora calls ‘bookjoy’. It is close to fifteen years of this work on the ground and it surprised me to realise I felt trapped by a web of our own making. After weeks of deliberation by […]