2-day children literary festival begins today at Majha House

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, November 1

The Majha House will host the first ever Children’s Literature Festival with an impressive lineup of authors, speakers and educators on November 2 and 3 here. Preeti Gill, founder of Majha House and convener of the festival, said, “It is for the first time that a literary event will focus around children. We keep on hearing parents complaining all the time about the growing distance between children and books. They lament that children are losing the habit of reading. That is how we came up with the idea of designing and organising a festival especially for the young.”

The participating authors include Bulbul Sharma, Paro Anand, Venita Coelho, Vaishali Shroff and performers like Fouzia Dastango and Talking Turtles. Renowned theatre artiste Sanjana Kapoor will also be there to conduct a theatre workshop. Kapoor is already in city and visited the Punjab Natshala to watch play Saka Jallianwala Bagh, a play dedicated to the 100th anniversary of Jallianwala Bagh massacre.

The main attraction of the festival would be direct interaction between children and the authors. The festival will have Nazi Puri, Amritsar’s Book Fairy, who has in her own way been encouraging children to read by distributing books free of cost, added, “We have approached schools to motivate their wards to participate and the response has been overwhelming. Students are really looking forward to be a part of this festival.” Spread over two days, the festival will see Majha House transforming into a wonderful and magical space for children, with author sessions, writing workshops, storytelling and tons of fun activities.