After a few weeks of planning, and hectic preparation on the day before, we were ready for the Library Day celebrations at a school in North Goa, which has always extended their full support to Bookworm – 2nd Lt. Jayendra Jayba Rane Govt. High School, Kudchire, Bicholim. The School authorities had been informed in advance and the teachers had made appropriate changes in their schedules.
The Team was greeted with the usual enthusiasm as the car drove up to the gates. Then there was a little more excitement as more bags than usual (and other interesting stuff) were unpacked. What would happen today?
The plan was that the 4 of us would go to one class each, let the children know that there would be no regular sessions today and select a few children to help with the celebrations. We would also lend books, as usual. In class 5, the children were a bit disappointed that there would be no story for them to hear today, but there was enough excitement in the air to counter it.
The regular teachers then engaged some of the classes, while we set up 4 stations for various activities with the help of a few older children. One station was a display on Libraries and held books and Scrabble tiles as well as some interactive toys, so the children could read or make words related to books and libraries; the second station was a display of the LiS program which included pictures of various parts of a session and a copy of the Annual Report; the third station was for Browsing and allowed children to sit and read a book or listen to a Book Talk by their classmates or just browse the collection; the fourth station was a relay game to find words relating to libraries and reading, from a basket.
The set up took around 20 minutes. There was no need to call the children out – those helping were very proactive in passing the word around. It seemed the teachers too got wind of the completed preparations and before we knew it, all stations had children participating without much help or instruction.
The game required a bit of supervision because everyone wanted to play at the same time. We had to form groups of children. The older children understood the game quickly, so they allowed the younger ones to play first and egged them on. The Library display did not require any monitoring, except to ask one group to move on so as to allow others to participate.
I was amazed by the interest shown in the LiS Annual Report – not the data, but the pictures and how the children wanted to see which pictures of their school were featured. I was also amazed by the number of children who listened to Book Talks by Shruti from class 6, Samar and Roshni from class 4 and Vaishvani and Nitekesh from class 3. Each group listened to a different Book Talk. I thought the Talkers would be shy or hesitant, but all of them spoke confidently – they had taken the time to read their books while our preparations were on.
After an hour of all these activities, the Team acted out the story of ‘Purple Jojo’. This was done just inside the main entrance, so there were children on the stairs and all around the mat, as Jojo lay under the tree and woke up with purple spots. It was similar to a street performance and everyone paid attention. Those who knew the story did not give away the ending.
What a day! The teachers seemed as excited as the children as they too went around looking at everything. At the time this program was conceptualised, Sujata had asked that it have the essence of a Mela – a Fair. It did.
None of this would have been possible without the advance preparation, the valuable feedback of the rest of the Team over the past few weeks, the co-operation of the teachers and Head of the school and most importantly, the enthusiasm of the children.
