STORY TIME

Ms. Paro Anand did two seprate story telling sessions with the Junior School children on Monday the 4th of August in the AV room. We enjoyed the story telling sessions hugely and we look forward to many more such sessions. 
Twenty six years ago at the age of 23 Paro Anand an author of childrens books started to write and has written many books which has brought joy into childrens hearts. Her first book was “Pepper, The Capuchini Monkey”. She likes to write books about animals, ghosts and every day life. Once in a while she also writes serious stories. Her recent books deal with terrorism and violence on children in Kashmir. She says she was in Kashmir during the Kargil war and it was a painful experience for her.
She has very little time of her own as she juggles three things. She comes to Vasant Valley twice a week to enhance language skills in children through a program called Literature in Action. She is the Editor of Rupa and Company and brings out four books a month. Besides, she is a story teller who keeps children like us entertained with her stories.
That’s quite a handful! Anhad Hundal Class V

AN HOUR WITH AN AUTHOR

On Wednesday during the book week an author Tanya Luther Agarwal who has written two books came to talk to the children of classes 3, 4 and 5 and tell us about her books. She also read them out to us. We were all excited to hear about her books. Her first book was called “Jelly Beans” and her second book called “Tons of Buttons” was about a girl named Caira who loved collecting buttons. The author also told us that it took her just three hours to write each book. Her third book is about to come out in two months and it is called “Chutney Tales”. We are all eagerly awaiting the release of that book. Yashvardhan Sathe Class V

SIMPLY QUIZZING

On Thursday, the 8th of August was the Book Quiz for classes 3, 4 and 5. It was an interhouse quiz and the quiz masters were Ms. Hareesh and Ms. Singh. There were nine rounds and each round was based on a different genre of writing. There was a Hindi round as well as a rapid fire round. Every time a team scored a point the house cheered. The scores built up bit by bit and our hearts missed a beat when our team missed a point. In the end it was Red House that scored a huge win. But win or lose, every body had a great time racking their brains and getting to know more about their favourite books and authors. 
Sukhman Khera and Tara Sen Class V

THE BOOK ACT!

Book week came to an end with a spectacular Friday Act where every class did something or the other related to books. Nursery and class III sang two melodious songs called Read Me and Books and completely enthralled the audience. Class III- B recited a poem in Hindi called Pustak. They also mastered the art of playing Dumb- Charades using book titles with a very interactive audience. Class IV enacted snippets of famous books and urged the audience to guess the name of the book. Class V brought Harry Potter alive in poetic form and enacted a mystery story keeping the mystery intact. Run Off and unravel the mystery in the library, YOU BOOK WORMS!!! Aastha Garde Class V

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DANCING OUT STORIES

On the 7th of August 2003, students from Miss Geetha Chandran’s dance school performed a fabulous dance drama based on a couple of stories from the Panchantantra. The first dance was about a king who was fed up of his three children. He felt that they had learnt nothing of value. So he called Vishnu Sharma, the author of the Panchantantra stories. The king asked him to teach his children. Vishnu Sharma, took the children to his house. There, he started off with a famous story about a holy man who finds this mouse and having no children of his own, he turns the mouse into a girl. Soon, it is time to get her married. The holyman calls all the various Gods whom she rejects one by one. None of them are worthy of her! Till, she takes a fancy to the Mouse God and is more then happy to change herself back into a mouse to marry him. . The moral of this story was that you can change your outside appearance, but not what you are inside. 

The second story was a famous one too. This one was about three intelligent Brahmins and one very stupid one. One day, the intelligent ones thought that they would embark on a journey to prove their wisdom. They decided to drag along the fourth brother. As they were passing the forest, they saw a pile of bones that looked like animal bones. The three brothers thought that this was their chance. They wanted to bring the animal, a lion, back to life. The stupid one didn’t want them to do so. He knew the lion would eat them up. But his brothers were adamant. He climbed a tree which was out of reach for the lion. And sure enough that the moment they revived the lion he ate them up. Only the fourth brother escaped. So in this story we learnt that even if you are intelligent you need to have presence of mind. 

The third and last story was about a flock of birds that get caught. A wise old pigeon told them to work together and fly to a mouse who would cut through the net and set them free. The mouse gnawed at the net and set the birds free. The moral of the story is “United We Stand and Divided We Fall”. The dance performance was a truly wonderful experience for all of us and we look forward to reading more such stories from the Panchantantra. 
Ayesha Malik Class V.

BUDDY READING

As I entered Nursery C for buddy reading when we had to read stories that we had specially written for our tiny friends, I saw a sea of eager and wide eyed faces. They did not like the stories much I thought but they seemed content just looking at the pictures. It troubled me a bit that they did not ask many questions. I thought perhaps the story was little too simple for them. I immediately put the book down and began to tell it in a slightly complex manner and when they asked me why, I simply answered “Read Me Instead”. Vir Vikram Kaleka Class V

Quote of The Week- 

Why only a book week why not a book YEAR or even a LIFE?!!