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Tuesday 30 September 2014

Pratham Books Champion : TALEescope

Lavanya Prasad writes to tell us about the storytelling session she conducted as part of TALEescope.

TALEescope is a small initiative of Lavanya Prasad, a professional storyteller and educator based in Bangalore. As the name suggests, TALEescope's aim is to reach out to children and adults by providing a clearer vision through stories.This four month old initiative,has been going around Bangalore and also tamilnadu spreading the joy of stories.You can see TALEescope's events at http://www.facebook.com/Taleescope. Basically an engineer,she discovered her passion for teaching and has been in the teaching line for the past seven years.An ardent believer in the power of stories,she now uses the same in bringing about a positive change in children and adults.She conducts storytelling sessions and workshops in various schools, bookstores and libraries for children, trains teachers and adults in the area of storytelling, and also volunteers in old age homes, orphanages, hospitals and other charitable trusts in bringing smiles through stories

TALEescope’s Third Tentastic Champion Programme (2nd August 2014)

A beautiful Saturday morning, and a lovely place with children of different ages. Not it’s not a library or an activity centre, but a beautiful house which is “THE SCHOOL” for the children of workers in that area. I was thrilled to take TALEescope there. When I went there the children were all sitting in a circle and doing their morning prayer routine. A sense of calm prevailed in the place. I went in and waited for their prayer to get over. 

I don’t know how it all started for in a few minutes we were all giggling and talking, they calling me akka and me joining in their enthusiasm.

Sometimes, I think of telling a story, but after interacting with the audience, I choose to tell a different story. It had always worked for me. So, after seeing the curious little bunch, I decided to do one of my personal favourites in the Pratham Series, “Bubloo Bear’s Adventure”. The beautiful “how and why” of the Himalayan Bear, and the Moon cycles.

The children were fascinated through the story listening to the “How and why’s”, they loved it when they saw Bubloo Bear wanting to become “The first Bear to be on the Moon”, and get the media’s attention, and were thrilled to hear the story beautifully move on to explain the moon cycles. We sang, we danced we played, and an hour just went by. Goodbye’s are always difficult, especially with these children, where I get the immense satisfaction of “ Sowing the seeds of imagination” through stories. I was moved when after the “bye byes”and “I’ll come agains” I get in my car and start, when the gate opens and they come running to me and say “Thank you akka, we’ll remember you every time we see the moon” . Now that’s Bliss. A Special thanks to the Author of the Book here. What a beautiful story line!




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Thank you Lavanya and TALEescope for helping us spread the joy of reading!

In 2014, Pratham Books is inviting people to become TENTASTIC Champions. This year's champions initiative is a year-long storytelling drive. Join our tribe of champions and commit to conducting ten storytelling sessions for children during the year (including the main one on International Literacy Day). Lets make reading contagious!

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