Dikshant International School in association with the Adab Foundation organized the first ever Chandigarh Children’s Literature Festival (CCLF-2014) on 28th and 29th March, 2014 at Tagore Theatre,Sector-18, Chandigarh.
The ethos of the festival was simple: to entertain children, and to enthuse them about reading. Students got the unique opportunity to experience first-hand Interaction with celebrated authors, illustrators and storytellers.
The First edition of CCLF -14 attracted some of the best children’s authors and illustrators from India to come and celebrate books and literature with our young readers. The grand line-up of Authors and illustrators who were part of the CCLF-2014 included Mr Ranjit Lal, Ms Samina Mishra, Ms Giti Chandra, Ms Sampurna Chattarji, Ms Simi Srivastava, Ms Chatura Rao, Ms Payal Dhar, Ms Shweta Taneja, Ms Natasha Sharma, Ms Priya Kurian, Ms Devika Rangachari, Ms Srivi Kalyan and theatre personality Mr Sukhesh Arora.
The festival featured some big events in which children got the opportunity to meet and talk to their favorite authors and illustrators; take part in workshops; attend the fun-filled and educational sessions.
The sessions at the event involved lot of humour, craft activities ,story telling, book reviews and book readings. Students discovered what makes a really good book, how everyday ordinary characters and real life experiences get converted into stories, how exploring words in new ways get transformed into set of flowing lines of a poetry, how visual thinking and language skills can be blended to create more powerful writing/ illustration . They also understood what are the challenges faced by writers when dealing with difficult subjects and much more.
The workshops at the event covered various aspects of literature like importance and tricks of book illustrations; dialogue writing; using one’s imagination, body, expressions and sounds to get connected to nature; elements of fantasy writing etc. Students were taken on a joy-ride of writing, reading and enjoying poetry through two of the very interesting poetry writing workshops. In a theatre workshop they also learnt the art of creating and telling stories through theatre.
In the above sessions and workshops, students in a fun filled manner ascertained what was unknown to them. Overall this festival laid the foundation stone for many budding writers of future.