While there have been many discussions about inculcating the reading culture among kids in the past, giving it a new spin, a conference on book reading therapy is soon to start in the city. Beginning February 9 till 11, several eminent national and international speakers from 15 countries will share their experiences on bringing children and books together to facilitate emotional growth and healing.
Organised by the Association of Writers and Illustrators for Children (AWIC) and the Indian Section of the International Board on Books for Young People (Ind.BBY), the conference seeks to address various issues like the role books play in reading to recovery, creating and using books to heal, etc.
“After the Tsunami disaster and the Gujarat earthquake, we wanted to introduce the affected kids to stories to divert their minds. We offered to set up libraries in these areas and it had a good impact on kids. In the meantime, Ind.BBY was also working on a project called Reading Recovery through which they tried to send books to many disaster-hit countries. So Ira Saxena suggested that we should do something on book therapy,” says Nilima Sinha, president, AWIC.
The conference focuses on kids from grief-stricken areas, and also those who have been victims of bullying, come from insecure family backgrounds etc. “The idea of book therapy seems to have grown naturally from the human inclination to identify with others through their expressions in literature and art. For instance, a grieving child who reads (or is read to) a story about another child who has lost a parent will naturally feel less alone in the world. In this way, the adult provides guidance in the resolution of personal crisis through the use of directed readings and follow-up activities,” says Ira Saxena, Secretary AWIC.
For parents in the city, the conference will be an eye-opener of sorts. Says Anuradha Vohra, a housewife, “For families like ours, where reading culture is not very popular, it’ll guide many of us on how to inculcate the habit of reading in our child and will help us understand how books can heal the conflict within a child as he grows up.”