Drop Everything for the Library!
Non-fiction as a genre has always been my least favourite. It reminded me too much of the school books and text books from which we had to extract the precise information that was needed to reproduce on paper and get your marks. While fiction and fantasy could lead you into worlds and stories that stretched […]
Writing Workshop at Chimbel
A three-day summer workshop was held for the children in Chimbel. When Terence asked me to do something for the seniors, I was quite hesitant. But he said he believed I could do it, and hence I took it up. I’ve always loved writing, and I decided to do a simple creative writing workshop with […]
Art Workshop at Chimbel
I conducted an Art Workshop alongside a Creative Writing Workshop at Chimbel. Getting the children to be disciplined was a bit of a challenge for me…the little children who were juniors, were sitting in a half circle around me. On the first day of the workshop, the children were a bit too jumpy and excited, […]
Library: A Safe Space
In Taleigao, near St. Micheal’s Church, stands a red building or a red house, call it whatever you like. Personally, I like to call it home. I love books; and a place that shelters books is home for me. I came to Bookworm library for the first time for an interview. I’ve always wanted to […]
Poetry Summer School
As I drive towards Bookworm this season beginning with the yellow blossoms in my car park to the ones along the Goa University road to the almost perennial Laburnum at the Taleigao park, I am reminded that summer is upon us and that I must help the team at Bookworm blooming. My summer school is […]
HOMES
When the school year ends, one imagines hours of reading time. Exploring books and indulging in relaxed reading. Not so at Bookworm. We were rounded up and assigned library reading tasks. To soften the task it was called a Drop Everything and Read in the Library. My task, was to help a fictitious child from […]
Finding THE book
I was given a task, to find three versions of the same story and share which one I liked the best. It was not an easy task but I said I would try. I first understood the meaning of the word ‘versions’. I thought of a story I knew from my school days – The […]
Gift a Smile
As a Library and a resource centre, the books that we wish to acquire are never ending, ever changing, and ALWAYS on our list of ‘resources we need’. Regardless of space, capacity or limits, a Library should be all encompassing, evolving and democratic in what it represents and as a Library is represented by it’s […]
My Journey from Books with lots of pages to Books with just a few
‘What child unable to sleep on a warm summer night hasn’t thought he saw Peter Pan’s sailing ship in the sky? I will teach you to see that ship.’ Robert Cotroneo, When a Child on a Summer Morning As my childhood days fell behind, the picture books and fairy tales that made up those years […]
Sammy Keyes and the Curse of Moustache Mary by Wendell Van Draanen
I work with an NGO, Bookworm, whose mission is to encourage reading in children. Hence, a library is the foundation of all the work that they do. The only children’s books I have read are from the era of Enid Blyton, Amar Chitra Kathas, Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys. Perhaps some William, Billy Bunter and […]