In an attempt to foster reading habits among children and to spread the joy of stories, Pratham Books on Tuesday launched the ‘One Day, One Story’ campaign. In its ninth edition, the campaign aims to conduct storytelling sessions with children online.
‘One Day, One Story’ is an annual event conducted by the publishers on International Literacy Day (September 8) to promote reading among children. Usually hosted offline, the set-up would involve an adult reading a story to a group of children from a children’s book. “We would host some sessions in Bengaluru and Delhi where we have office spaces. But actually the campaign has grown organically over the past nine years. We have thousands of volunteers who do storytelling sessions with children wherever they are based. It could be at a school or during weekends,” says Priya Desai, Senior Manager - Marketing and Communications at Pratham Books.
The books chosen to be read at the campaign change every year. This year, the two books featured by Pratham Books as part of the campaign are Angry Akku and The Girl Who Could Not Stop Laughing. Referring to the choice of books this year, Priya says that it resonated with the mood of the year, with the pandemic, the lockdown and the general gloom. “Children have been at home due to the lockdown for a very long time. Angry Akku is about how children can deal with emotions like anger and frustration while The Girl Who Could Not Stop Laughing is just about laughing, which the kids find funny. It has been a very depressing year especially for children,” she explains.
Since it is online, the event this year has several celebrities volunteering to conduct video sessions of storytelling for children. Actors Saif Ali Khan, Madhuri Dixit Nene, Chitrangada Singh, Tillotama Shome, Janhvi Kapoor, Athiya Shetty, Sobhita Dhulipala and Mithila Palkar are some of the prominent names who will be part of the campaign this year.
“Since the campaign is online, it is extending through September. People are doing it from today online and encouraging others also to read books to kids. We are going to keep it open for another couple of weeks at least,” says Priya, adding that the sessions can also be conducted in various regional languages. “We translate our books in a lot of regional languages, so people who are interested in conducting sessions in regional languages can specify the request when they are signing up,” Priya added.
If you are interested to be one of the reading champions, you can sign up here.