Pratham Books Champion : Elizabeth Philip

This International Literacy Day, Pratham Books has taken a 1000 steps towards a 'Reading India'

What started as a small step by Pratham Books to spread the joy of reading has become a movement. Last year Pratham Books initiated the One Day-One Story initiative on the occasion of International Literacy Day and we conducted over 250 storytelling sessions. This year we are delighted that over a 1000 sessions are happening across the length and breadth of the country.We will be sharing the stories of all our champions through our blog.

This story was sent by Elizabeth Philip. Once upon a time Elizabeth Philip taught English and History in school. Now she tells stories to school children in Kanpur. Her story sessions are in English but for a change she decided to tell the Paplu story in Hindi.

1 storytelling session conducted in Kanpur on 7th September, 2013. Language used : Hindi. Children impacted : 40

I went to my old school St Mary's Convent High School, Kanpur.The CJ sisters run a parallel Hindi medium school there called the Mary Ward school.

Some 40 children of class 3 heard the story of Paplu Rakshas.Sister Anjana who looks after the school and the class teacher Rashmi were also present. 

The children were asked to guess who Paplu is

Bacha ...nahi...Sher... nahi ....chooha.. nahi ...not even kabootar 

Paplu nahi hai ladka chota

Paplu nahi hai aadmi mota

Then I wrote ra... on the board. There were a couple of children who said Rakshas!

Added a little movie masala. So the song we sang went like this

Paplu hai ek rakshas

Bada hi hoshiyaar

Ladta jhagadta hai nahi

Sabhi se karta pyaar

Paplu yaaron ka yaar hai

Paplu dildaar hai star hai

Par... Paplu lad nai sakta

And Paplu's mother sang Main Pareshaaan pareshaan pareshaan pareshaan

Kaisa beta mera... a la Parineeti Chopra

I asked the children if Paplu would be able to think of a solution when the villagers are troubled by Angaar One child said he would call his mother. That gave me an opportunity to say Maaaa... gaaon walon ko bacha lo!

At Angaar's entry we all chanted

Haath mein talwaar hai

Naam uska Angaar hai

Dakoo bada khoonkaar hai

And then Madhuri's Ek do teen came in handy when I told them about the 21 tailors

...chaudah pandrah solah satrah atrah unnis bees nahi poore ikkees!!

I had fun with the children. Thank you Pratham Books.

Thank you Elizabeth for spreading the joy of reading!

View more pictures from the International Literacy Day Celebrations.

This blog contains stories sent in by all our champions. Browse through the blog for more stories. You can also go through the tags on the right side of the blog to find stories happening in your own city.

Note : If any of you want to be a Pratham Books Champion and join us on our journey of getting 'a book in every child's hand', write to us at web(at)prathambooks(dot)org.