KathaVana 2017

Azim Premji University’s annual, bi-lingual children’s literature festival, KathaVana, is here again!

KathaVana is a 3-day event, including activities for APU students, events for teachers and librarians, and a mela for the children, themselves! The three dates are:

1. October 25, 2017 (9:30 AM- 4:30 PM): 10th floor, Seminar Hall, Azim Premji University
2. November 14, 2017: Children’s Mela (Activities and Book Exhibition), National College Grounds, Basavanagudi
3. November 17, 2017: Workshop for Government School Teachers, Block Resource Center, Tin School Compound, Basavanagdi

The first two events may be of interest to some of you – the first, for adults who are interested in Children’s Literature; and the second, for children who you know and would like to bring to the mela.

This year’s theme is Writing for Children.

1. At the University Event on Oct 25, a panel (consisting of authors, illustrators and reviewers) will discuss issues like: Is writing for children qualitatively different from writing for adults? Does “good” lie in the eye of the beholder, or is it possible to have a shared understanding about good writing for children? Should writing for children be sanitized of adult content? Are biases (social stereotypes) permissible, or should books with biases be eliminated from children’s reading diet? How do our assumptions about who children are and what they like/need guide us in how we write for them? Etc.

Moderator: Shailaja Menon

2. This will be followed by a hands-on workshop where teachers, APU students and interested others will be led by facilitators in examining different children’s books and making determinations for themselves on what they like/find problematic in those samples of writing.

Our colleagues, Jane Sahi (School of Ed) and Maitri Vasudev (SLS) will design and lead this workshop.

For detailed concept note Concept Note.