shyamala's world

Hello Everyone! Greetings of the festive season!  There is plenty happening at Kahani Takbak. This month we are trying a different format for the newsletter.   Since its festive season and everyone is busy doing gazillion things, we have kept the newsletter short and crisp. 1.        Interview: Deepa Agarwal, author of Listen O King (Puffin)      2.        Author of A Naani called Tsunami(Mango books), Ramendra Kumar shares his journey as a writer 3.        CISCE'S new directive on books: Boon or bane for authors and children? 4.        Children authors and their events In other news we are happy to announce a)  Launch of Kataba epublishing, a venture to create ebooks for budding writers of all ages  b) Launch of our youtube channel, Kahani Takbak Watch out for our first resource ebook for parents and teachers, Spark Creativity and Vocabulary with Picture Prompts. It will be out soon! If you would like to have a free pdf copy of the book in return for a

To subscribe to our free monthly newsletter, visit  www.kahanitakbak.com  To send feedback,  mail to kahanitakbak@gmail.com   Date Author Event Venue City December 2  Paro Anand Author Interaction Vidya school Gurgaon December 2 Deepak Dalal Author Interaction Vidya Niketan school Bengaluru December 3 Hippocampus  Bengaluru Peek a book litfest, Mumbai Date Author Event Time  December 10 Lavanya Karthik Lion’s feast 11.45-12.45 pm Chatura Rao Story creating workshop  : Gone Grandma 2.45pm-3.45 pm Payal Kapadia Horrid high 1.30-2.30 Jane D suza Become a super hero for one day 10.30-11.30 Tulika Maheshwari Sashu Pashu kashu 11.45-12.45 December 11 Natasha Sharma Princess easy Pleasy 10.30 pm-11.30 pm Shabn

Should CISCE(Council for Indian school examination) encourage books of popular foreign and dead authors instead of promoting home grown children authors as a part of their syllabus?  (Reference article: http://epaperbeta.timesofindia.com//Article.aspx?eid=31804&articlexml=Now-study-Amar-Chitra-Katha-Tintin-Potter-in-24112016009050# ) Kahani Takbak asked a few people for their views. Picture courtesy : www.pixabay.com Asha Narayanan,Principal, Lodha World School, Navi Mumbai : “The CISCE has always had the freedom to pick references from the wide variety of relevant and age appropriate material around us. Now it has gone one step further in spelling out a few of these. The idea is to stimulate the reader's imagination. The move is welcome. And since this variety is from their vocabulary of books, students will take to it like a fish to water.” Paro Anand, Author of upcoming book Two (Scholastic India ): I think it is a wonderful initiative to get bet

Winner of the recent Sankalpa Samman award for his contribution to children's literature, Ramendra Kumar, writes about his foray into writing. I started writing satire and poetry   in my college days and continued my literary pursuits after I joined Rourkela Steel Plant. My creative endeavours received a modest degree of success. When my daughter Ankita was four, my son Aniket happened. My wife Madhavi is working in the same Steel Plant as me. Her hands were naturally full taking care of the new born.  “You write satire and poetry don’t you? Then why can’t you tell Ankita stories and put her to sleep, while I concentrate on Aniket,” Madhavi told me one day. To her, shifting from satire/poetry to children’s fiction was as simple as moving from the universe of the boiled to the planet of the poached egg. Anyways, I seriously took up her advice and started thinking up little tales to tell my precious one. I don’t know whether Ankita liked the plot more or my antics, bu

Why did you choose to write about Vikram and Vetaal? ​ Actually the request came from the publisher. My editor Sohini Mitra told me that they had a translation by the eminent Sanskrit scholar Chandra Rajan in the Penguin Classics series and wanted to bring out a child friendly version. As you know, these tales have passed into the realm of children's literature though the written Sanskrit texts are not really suitable for kids. Many years back, I had done a selection of 14 stories for Scholastic India titled  The   Tricky Tales of Vikram and Vetal  so I asked the editor Tina Narang if it was OK to write them again for another publisher. She was kind enough to give permission. ​  2.  How easy or difficult was it researching on those stories? Was the book easily available in the library? Generally libraries charge a lot just to allow people to handle these ancient texts and photocopy them? Did you face any challenges in the library? ​ You are absolutely right. Libraries