Books Galore!

Over the weekend, we attended Bookalore's birthday bash!!! Bookalore, known as Bangalore's big little book club is an independent forum that aims at popularising contemporary Indian books amongst kids and young adults through monthly events centered around stories, activities and of course books, books and more books. Though we had attended a couple of these events before, we haven't been as regular as I would have liked due the fact that the events are spread across different venues every month. Frankly, Bangalore plays host to so many children's events that we parents find it hard to keep up, thus weekends getting busier than weekdays! :-)  Nevertheless, Bookalore's first anniversary was hard to miss and so there we were at our favorite children's library on a sunny Saturday morning, just like we had been on Bookalore's launch last year! :-) So it has been a full circle for Bangalore's children's writers, illustrators, editors and publishers who joined hands to start Bookalore a year ago, as they once again got together at Hippocampus to bring to us another action packed session for kids of all ages and sizes!:-)

 

 

 

 

I am not sure if it's sign for all the upcoming children's events this year (I so hope so!),  but for a change.....we reached Hippocampus on time (Yay!)  and had Abhay seated well before the event began!!:-)  What's a birthday without a cake? So Bookalore's first birthday started with a cake-cutting ceremony, thanks to which Abhay refused to leave the cake out of sight and almost missed the next session with  "Little Indians" author Pika Nani (something he had looked forward to!) fearing he wouldn't get a slice of the birthday cake!  After a lot of convincing and cajoling, we got him to attend and have fun at the "Desi-videsi Jamboree", and what's more he got to snack on a slice of sponge cake along with the birthday cake!:-)) 

While kids find Bookalore's event exciting for the story time followed by fun activities, it is most certainly a treat for us since we get to meet liked minded parents, plus we find books that are hard to come by in regular bookstores. So I couldn't believe my eyes when I finally landed the book that I've been looking for in every single bookstore I’d been to since I learned about it. Commonly confused with the "Song of the Bookworm" by Anushka Ravishankar, "The Bookworm" is a Karadi Tales publication by Lavanya R.N and Shilo Shiv Suleman. As one might guess, the story revolves around a ten year old bookworm by name Sesha, who has his nose always buried in books. Other kids in his class look upon Sesha as a freak and even have a song to tease him with. Sesha couldn't care less as he is happy to be immersed in his world of books. But one day as he accidentally runs into the bully brothers Rohan and Rohit, everyone learns of his speech disorder. Sesha is now an easy target of class jokes that only isolates him further. But a small incident in class changes the way everyone sees him, that not only helps Sesha discover his true self but also helps the entire class discover the world of books. Have your little bookworm read on to find out! Abhay loved the book and I see him wanting to revisit Sesha's triumph again and again! Complemented by unique collage and scrapbook styled illustrations, this book is must read for every growing kid for many reasons......most of all for inspiring kids to turn to books. Here's to Bookalore for doing just that......Happy first anniversary and here's to many more!