Window Seat | Mrinal Chatterjee |
12.1.20
Future of Children’s Literature
I was a panelist at the panel discussion on
Future of Children's Literature at the New Delhi World Book Fair organised by National
Centre for Children’s Literature (NCCL) of National Book Trust (NBT) on 4
January.
My take was: in a digital ecosphere, it is difficult to make people read, more so children. The attention span is decreasing. Distractions are increasing. Therefore though Children’s book bazar is booming across the world, our children are probably reading less and enjoying whatever they are reading even lesser.
My take was: in a digital ecosphere, it is difficult to make people read, more so children. The attention span is decreasing. Distractions are increasing. Therefore though Children’s book bazar is booming across the world, our children are probably reading less and enjoying whatever they are reading even lesser.
There are three categories of books for
children- with some overlapping. One: text books. Two: books providing
information, which enrich their knowledge and/or help them to become better
informed person; and three: story books, which children read for pleasure,
which fuels their imagination.
As
people are becoming more educated and earning more money- they want their
children to be 'more educated'- more focused on the 'studies'. They want their
children to read less number of books that do not
fall in their 'areas of study'. As a result children are reading more - on
their subject of study (mostly text books), and reading less about other subjects
thereby knowing less about other areas in life. Reading for pleasure is not
encouraged by most of the first-generation educated parents. This leads to a
serious setback in developing the personality of the children. Children are
made to develop a need-focused, goal-oriented personality. Pleasure, happiness takes
a backseat. They tend to ignore simple pleasures of life going after the
elusive 'success'.
Now what are the ways out:
Parents, teach your kids to read for pleasure. Don't only ask them to read text books and books to get information.
Teachers, encourage children to read variety of books. Nudge them to explore and ideate.
Writers, focus on 'story telling'. Write well. Write for the children.
Publishers, experiment with form. Mix and match text, audio-video, even virtual reality and gaming. This is one of the major trends in children’s books to watch. Penguin Random House is entering the children’s ebook arena with Bookful, an app that combines books with augmented reality (AR) to provide kids with an immersive and interactive experience. We’re going to see a lot of development in this area over the next few years.
Now what are the ways out:
Parents, teach your kids to read for pleasure. Don't only ask them to read text books and books to get information.
Teachers, encourage children to read variety of books. Nudge them to explore and ideate.
Writers, focus on 'story telling'. Write well. Write for the children.
Publishers, experiment with form. Mix and match text, audio-video, even virtual reality and gaming. This is one of the major trends in children’s books to watch. Penguin Random House is entering the children’s ebook arena with Bookful, an app that combines books with augmented reality (AR) to provide kids with an immersive and interactive experience. We’re going to see a lot of development in this area over the next few years.
But ‘telling a story well’
remains the soul of good children’s literature.
No Marriage Women
The other day I read in a newspaper an
interesting news: A growing number of South Korean women are banding together
and embracing radical feminist movement ‘4B’ or the four Nos. No Dating, No
Sex, No Marriage and No Child-rearing.
The effects risk reinforcing the country’s
looming demographic disaster. South Korea’s total fertility rate- the number of
children a woman is expected to have in her lifetime- dropped to 0.98 in 2018,
far below the 2.1 needed to keep a population stable.
The situation is completely different. We need
to reduce the number by reducing the fertility rate. It is good that that is
happening. The fertility rate in India is at 2.2 (in 2017) after being stable at 2.3 for the four years from 2013 to
2016, according to the Sample Registration System (SRS) compiled by Registrar
General of India (RGI) for 2017.
However, our problem is regional imbalance. Among the states,
Bihar reported the highest TFR (3.2), about twice that of Kerala (1.7) and
Delhi (1.5), which scored the lowest. The findings indicated that the average
fertility rate went down primarily in southern states such as Tamil Nadu (1.6),
Andhra Pradesh (1.6), Telangana (1.7), Kerala(1.7) and Karnataka (1.7) as well
as the hill states — Jammu & Kashmir (1.6), Himachal Pradesh (1.6) and
Uttarakhand (1.9). Delhi (1.5), West Bengal (1.6), Punjab (1.6) and Odisha
(1.7) also fared well.
One of the key reasons for the decline in fertility has been education, more precisely that of women.
One of the key reasons for the decline in fertility has been education, more precisely that of women.
Tail piece: Our News Channels
What
will America do next in Iran?
To
decide that whole of US think tank is watching Indian News Channels and closely
following the experts airing their views.
Jai ho.
***
The
author, a journalist turned media academician lives in Central Odisha town of
Dhenkanal.
An
anthology of his weekly column Window
Seat, published in 2019 is being published as a book. Should you want a
copy with introductory discounted price, write to him at: mrinalchatterjee@ymail.com
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