The Tic-Tac-Toe Children’s Literary Festival features a range of activities related to books for children between 4 and 12 years. Among the highlights of the festival are the cozy reading corners scattered all around the mall in the city.
Story-telling, reading corners, design your own book cover are activities lined up for children.
Activity centre Not A Box has created an exciting series of workshops for children. Chennai-based authors and illustrators will also hold interactive storytelling sessions.
“We’ve noticed that there have been literary fests in the past but nothing specifically dedicated to kids and our idea is to see how to engage kids more with books and get back into that space as well”, says the team from The Glassbox.
The festival will culminate with a panel discussion for adults where industry professionals will discuss the role of stories in modern parenting and education.
The idea was to intersperse the event with different activities that would keep the kids engaged throughout the event. Each storytelling session will be different from the other.
“Focussing on children’s literature is good. There is a growing number of kids’ lit fests in India and I am glad that there is a new one in Chennai now”, explains Sharanya Manivannan, Writer.
She explains about her session, “My session will playoff on my book, “The Ammuchi Puchi”, and will be audience-centric. My approach is that kids will be able to pick up the book and experience it at home or at a library, but the chance to share their own stories spontaneously is fun. Much of the storytelling in my session will be by the kids themselves.”
Sharanya feels that any initiative that puts books into kids’ hands is a good one. What she especially likes about the Tic-Tac-Toe Literary Festival is that it is focused on Indian publishers and local authors and illustrators. “Families and educators need to know that there is a world of literature being created in this country that reflects our lives.”
