Pratham Books Champion : Shalini Garpha

This story was sent by Shalini Garpha, an ardent lover of children books (especially picture books). She also loves writing short stories and has penned two picture books and plans to publish them some day. Shalini is currently pursuing Masters in economics from Dharamshala.

It was first of a kind for the kids of Govt. Primary school Dharamshala and me as well, the storytelling session on “Paplu The Giant” left kids with their mouth wide open in awe watching the charming illustrations and me giggling along seeing their excitement.

Class strength- 30

Covered-1st , 2nd and 3rd class.

Kids patiently listen as the story of Paplu unfolds.

And so excited they were to see Paplu hide behind trees, they all jumped up and rushed from their seats to have a glimpse of it!

  

The moment when kids learn that Paplu said only half the magic words his mother had taught and now has barely any piece cloth left on his body, they burst into fits of laughter

As Paplu scared away the bad guys, there was a loud cheerful applause and that is how the story “Paplu The Giant” ended, with all love.

After a small break, to end the session on a lighter note ,we read Chee Chee Drip drip and made all the funny sounds!

I got the opportunity to conduct a storytelling session at Govt. Primary school, Dharamshala. I did the story in mix of English and Hindi both. My mimicry skills and expressions came a lot handy as the kids were all into the story, we had fun making sounds “Whoosh whoosh”, Chee chee, shee shee, and drip drip!

I concluded the session making them realise if they wanted to read more interesting stories they needed to study-read-write well, while leaving the class I noticed two boys quickly pulling out one of their text book and reading- discussing some story, perhaps it was an impactful day.

I could not thank Pratham Books more for giving me this wonderful opportunity.

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On International Literacy Day (2013), Pratham Books took 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. In 2013, over a 1000 sessions were happening across the length and breadth of the country.We will be sharing the stories of all our champions through our blog.

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.