Posted On: 2023-10-13 10:47:35
According to the data by World Population Review, Indians spend more time reading than anyone else, with an average of 10 hours and 42 minutes of reading per week. This shouldn’t come as a surprise, since India has a rich history of literature.
Right from the dawn of Indian civilization, books have been a huge part of Indians’ lives. Ancient epics like Mahabharata and Ramayana, along with classical writers like Rabindranath Tagore and Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, and even modern-day living legends like Arundhati Roy and Amish Tripathi, are all cherished by the people of India.
Indian literature covers a wide array of topics and stories, from experiences of marginalized communities to fiction, fantasy, mythology, romance etc. Indians are even jumping into graphic novels, with writers like Naseer Ahmed, Saurabh Singh, Amruta Patil and Sarnath Banerjee gaining prominence. Literature is not only limited to Hindi language but also regional languages like Malayalam, Bengali, Tamil, Marathi, Assamese etc and Western languages like English and French.
As India has such a widespread culture of literature, it is apt that we should celebrate this International School Library Month and pass on this legacy of reading to future generations.
So, here are some ideas to celebrate International School Library Month:
Invite children in your locality to display their favourite books, along with the a small write-up of why they love the said book. This would help other children to discover new books, genres and authors and deepen their love for reading.
What better way to carry on the legacy of Indian Literature than by giving emphasis to future writers? Encourage children to write their own stories and display them in your areas. Activities like these would help to boost the self-esteem of children and may give them impetus to pursue writing in future.
You can also host an event where children swap their books, and allow them to bond over their favourite books. This could also be expanded to adults swapping books with children, rather than being limited to only children, as adults have read more in their lives, they can help children to explore more books.
Host a book donation drive, where people can donate books to be given in local libraries. These drives can help children and people from marginalized communities to get access to more books.
If possible, you can also invite an author to speak on books and literature. Even professors of literature can be invited to conduct such sessions. These sessions will drive the zeal of children to study literature.
Along with its crowdfunding partner, Child Help Foundation, Filaantro has organized book drives and helped promote Child Help Foundation’s Quality Education programme. In total, Child Help Foundation and Filaantro have reached out to 4,86,141 children with its Quality Education programme.
Thank you for taking the time to read this blog. Make sure to share it with all your friends and family members.
AUTHOR: Adil Sayyad
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