Thank you for animating us, Nina!

Animator, filmmaker and educator Nina Sabnani was invited by American Embassy School, Delhi to interact with faculty and students. 

During her stay, Nina met with the arts faculty to share her experiences. She was also a guest speaker at the Elementary School library's storytelling event, speaking to over six hundred students in the course of presenting her work. With the Middle School humanities classes, she shared her insights as an author.

Nina also ran two special workshops with the
Middle School art students which culminated in a school exhibition where the children put up art work-in-progress inspired by Nina’s cloth figures! 

The school shared its thank-you note to Nina with us, perfectly capturing Nina and her work:


"The work of Nina Sabnani stands in many ways for what AES aspires to represent: a natural compassion for others, the spirit of collaboration and inquiry into challenging issues in our world.

Her films are as far from the world of Bollywood as one can get: intricate documentaries on ancient traditions, stop motion animation of humorous stories, the repurposing of Madhubani paintings for an anti-dowry story…

Big issues tackled in original ways: this is what brings art teachers and children together. This week Nina brought the textures and traditions of her local landscape to AES, and helped our students make memory boxes, family carpets and friendship houses. She shared films and books that were tactile, tender and  turn-inside-out-able!

To animate means to give life to, to fill with spirit and courage, to inspire to action. Thank you for animating us, Nina!"

Tulika Book Buzz

Birdywood Beat
The children of Nalanda School, Mumbai, grooved to the sounds of the Birdywood Beat with writer Shamim Padamsee, who did a storytelling session with The Great Birdywood Games. Woo-hoot!

Jadoo at Kitab Khana

The teachers of Ascend International School, Mumbai, did a wonderful bilingual reading of The Magic Feather at Kitab Khana on Saturday 11th December 2012. Varsha read the Hindi version and simultaneously, Kelly read the English version of this delightful book, written and illustrated by Roma Singh.  The reading was followed by a fun book-decorating craft project. Three cheers for reading!

Bambooing
Writer and storyteller Praba Ram did a read-aloud session at Kangaroo Kids on November 30th. One of the books she chose to read out from was Tulika’s Bulbuli’s Bamboo. “I thoroughly enjoyed poring over the rich, vibrant colours of the illustrations in this book… The lively play on prepositions makes each page a pleasure to read-aloud,” says Praba Ram, in this review of Bulbuli’s Bamboo. 

Paploodum

“Every page in this book is a natural conversation starter, so there’s no end to how far the imaginations can soar when you and your child sit with a book like this,” says Richa Jha, in this review of Why Paploo Was Perplexed.

My Adventures with Night

Junuka Deshpande is an artist, filmmaker and teacher. She likes to explore methods and forms of documenting and understanding people and their environment in an involved, collaborative, non-hierarchical and just way. She feels that it’s important to reach out to different kinds of children through art, storytelling and books. Junuka is the author and illustrator of the bilingual picture book, Night. 

“The head is like a cat but the body is like a tiger!”

A little voice came from somewhere in the audience. I was conducting a storytelling session at Buzz Book Club, Coimbatore, based on my book, Night, published by Tulika. The idea of the illustration was to suggest a tiger (which could be a cat) that the characters in the book spotted and ran away from. 

I started searching for the girl who had so spontaneously declared her view and finally saw her. She was smaller than the chair she was sitting on, but her eyes were wide and sparkling! I felt honoured as a visual storyteller.

Initially, I was apprehensive about talking about the black and white imaginative experimental illustrations in the book. Children are usually given colourful and ‘attractive’ visual material. My apprehension was about the newness of the black and white concept. I was proven wrong by the children. They took a deep interest in every page, expressing exactly what they thought. It was a good idea to project the illustrations on the screen in a size larger than life. 

We began with a small experiment. We switched off the lights and sat quietly with our eyes shut. Let’s pretend that the room is a forest, I said. As I talked, I moved about in the hall and on their own, children began mimicking animal sounds and bird calls. Later, we had a discussion based on all the different sounds we heard and imagined what it would be like if we too set off on a journey too – just like the two children in the book!

There is an illustration of a jungle where one of the trees has little elephants on it. The adults wanted to know why, but the children naturally accepted it. I was curious. Why are they elephants on the tree, I asked. One loud voice cried, “The children are fascinated by the forest so they are seeing like that!” 

I wrapped up with a drawing session where each child drew his/her own idea of the night. It was very interesting to see some of their interpretations.

The other event I did with Night was in broad daylight, at a children’s festival by Yellow Train, an alternative school in Coimbatore. In this session, we looked at the book and talked about each visual working around the idea of telling stories through drawings. 

The children in the group were very articulate and they seemed well-exposed to the world of books. I would love to make books with them based on their own stories and imagination – who knows how many author-illustrators one will find!

Monkeying Around

On World Book Day, Tharini and Prince from Book Lover's Programme for Schools, had a storytelling at Sunshine Matriculation School, Mehta Nagar, Chennai. Notes from Tharini on an eventful morning...

Two hundred kids screaming, clapping and bringing the roof down is therapeutic. You come back slightly hoarse, but happy, contented and knowing for a fact that it was one of the best mornings ever. You should try it sometime! 

On March 1st, Prince and I went to Sunshine Matriculation School to tell Classes 1, 2 and 3 stories as part of World Book Day. Niveditha had called us earlier and asked us to tell three stories. We chose Hanuman’s Ramayan, When Ali Became Bajrangbali and The Sky Monkey’s Beard out of the list we had been given. Niveditha had evidently chosen an ideal theme, for when I began the session by asking the kids whether they liked monkeys, there was a resounding “YES!”. 

We started with the “Shake Shake Song” as all the kids shook and sang, clapped and jumped and stretched with us. Once everyone was happy with all the singing, I started on the first story of the morning. From Hanuman’s Ramayan, it was an easy transition to When Ali Became Bajrangbali, where all the kids got a kick out of the Meesaikaran’s long long moustache. Then it was time for another song. 

This time, we sang “Five Little Monkeys” more or less in time with Prince’s guitar. Prince then started the story of the little sky monkey who wants to live on the land, rather than float in the clouds. To emphasise the point, he rolled around on the floor, much to the children’s fascination. We wrapped up the story telling session with one more song. And then, sadly, it was time to go home. 

Thank you, Tulika, for giving us a chance to tell stories to such a delightful audience. We hope to do more story-telling sessions with you in the future!

Tharini Viswanath, BLPS