Dates: May 10^th and 11^th (Friday and Saturday)
Venue: BMICH – Mihilaka Medura/Kamatha
Timing
Friday 9 AM to 1:30 PM
Saturday 10 AM to 2:30 PM

21 Speakers | 50 sessions | Unlimited Fun

Storytelling, Workshops, Books, and Art & Craft for 4–14-year-olds

The first edition of Bookaroo Children’s Literature Festival in Colombo will be held on the 10^th/11^th of May 2024. The Colombo edition is being presented by LPF (La Petite Fleur) Schools to celebrate 30 years of service to the child. 

Founded by Bernie Anderson in 1993, LPF Schools offer an exemplary educational journey for children. LPF also spearheads the Bridge2Peace program, an outreach arm that extends the school’s ethos of compassion and excellence to the most impoverished areas of Sri Lanka. With a curriculumrooted in life’s fundamental principles, LPF nurtures students into independent, confident, and compassionate learners.

Bookaroo is India’s first and biggest Children’s Literature Festival. The festival continues its attempts to spread the joy of books and reading in its 17th port of call in what will be the45th edition of the festival in its 16th year. 

This annual festival, organised by the Bookaroo Trust, is a completely non-ticketed event. It aspires to connect children with the world of imagination through books and storytelling in an exciting manner. Started off in 2008 as a solo edition in New Delhi, the festival has spread its cheer in 16 cities.

Says Bernie Anderson, LPF’s founder: ” LPF is a joyful story of 30 beautiful years! Amazingly I can recall a happy story of practically each child That has learnt with us, starting with our very first students Durga Ratnayake and Natalie Koelmeyer. With “Giving Back” being our only intention to celebrate these 30 blessed years, Bookaroo was the perfect complement to our belief that learning is in fact a never ending story and can only happen with meaningful relationships. This completely non-ticketed two days of storytelling and so much more will celebrate each Child, Teacher, Parent, and significant relationships that tell the special story of the LPF Schools.”

Twenty one speakers (nine of whom are from Colombo) are ready to regale the children of Colombo. Of the other speakers, there are 9 from India and one each from Seoul and Berlin. Appended is the full list of the speakers and their bios.

It promises to be a weekend of sharing the joy of books through storytelling, art workshops, craft, writing events, Q&A with authors and more. It is also a perfect opportunity for young folks from 4-14 age to come, interact with the authors and illustrators and immerse themselves in creativity.The festival bookstore, Goodreads, will stock all the participating authors’ and illustrators’ books that children can buy and get signed.

“It is with delight that we anticipate Bookaroo’s second international foray outside India. We have a great mix of Sri Lankan and international speakers speaking on diverse subjects and bringing flavours from different parts of the world. The sessions range from activities to poetry to illustration workshops to an ongoing all-day, all ages activity to keep those children who may have missed entering a session busy,” says Swati Roy, Festival Director, adding, “We would like to thank our collaborators in Sri Lanka – especially Bernie Anderson in LPF and Adityavikram More whose zeal helped make this edition a reality. We look forward to working with the LPF team to make this a success.”

The festival is being supported by the ForwardAir Group, Sri Lankan Airlines, Colombo Court Hotel and by the LPF community of students, teachers and parents and other corporate sponsors.

The line-up for Colombo includes 

Authors Arefa Tehsin, Chantal-Fleur Sandjon, Professor J B Disanayaka, Janaki Galappatti, Nadishka Aloysius, Rukhshanie Weerasooriya Wijemanne and ShehanKarunatilaka. 

Illustrators Ashok Rajagopalan, Canato Jimo, Deepa Balsavar, Irushi Tenekkoon, Lavanya Karthik, Nina Sabnani, Priya Kuriyan, Savio Mascarenhas and Shenuka Corea.

Storytellers Alicia Dongjoo Bang, Champa Saha and Lavanya Prasad.

Sharing the vision of promoting reading for pleasure, Bookaroo’s programme will engage children in sessions of dramatic storytelling, writing and illustration workshops, sessions encompassing both fiction and non-fiction.

For more information, please write to info@bookaroo.in

Website: www.bookaroo.in , www.lpfschools.com

FB: facebook.com/bookaroolitfest

Tw: twitter.com/bookaroolitfest

Insta: @bookaroolitfest, @lapetitefleur_schools

Full bio of all the speakers

Alicia Dongjoo Bang, Seoul, South Korea

A storyteller, educator, and festival director from South Korea, Alicia shares Korean folktales worldwide and in local libraries and bookstores. As president of the Korea International Storytellers’ Association she nurtures storytelling globally.

Arefa Tehsin, Udaipur, India

Arefa grew up treading jungles with her naturalist father. She was often found trying to catch a snake or spin a yarn. Ex-Hon. Wildlife Warden, Udaipur, she’s the author of 19 books and a columnist.

Ashok Rajagopalan, Chennai, India

Ashok loves to tell stories and draw pictures that make people, especially little people, laugh. He loves reading, talking, laughing and walking in the rain and lives in a green, quiet part of Chennai with his noisy family.

Canato Jimo, Bengaluru, India

Art director Canato, who comes from Nagaland, loves to watch picture books come alive. He moonlights as a musician, loves to guzzle tea and pop bubble wraps, and is a recovering stationery addict.

Champa Saha, Bengaluru, India

Champa’s role as teacher, special educator and counsellor gives her the opportunity to be in the world that she loves the most – that of stories. She loves stories, children and dogs, not necessarily in that order!

Chantal-Fleur Sandjon, Berlin, Germany

Chantal-Fleur is an Afro-German author. She writes her first drafts long-hand and dances a lot at her desk. Her YA novel The Sun, So Bright and Black was, among other things, awarded the German Youth Literature Prize.

Deepa Balsavar, Mumbai, India

Deepa loves animals, children, books and printmaking. She is usually found with ink on her hands, or with her nose in a book, her animals curled up beside her. Deepa also writes and illustrates children’s books.

Irushi Tennekoon, Rajagiriya

Irushi is a picture book artist and animator based in Colombo. Through her work she explores extraordinary stories about everyday people and places. 

Professor J. B. Disanayaka, Colombo

Despite a long list of impressive titles (Deshamanya, Sahitya Ratna, Deshanetru), professor Disanayaka retains a charming personality and a great sense of humour. His retelling of Lankan folktales is a gift to the country’s children.

Janaki Galappatti, Colombo

Janaki has enjoyed creating stories as a child, a parent, a scientist, a teacher and a writer. Having worked at early Bookaroos in Delhi, she looks forward to joining Bookarooin her hometown.

Lanka Perera and Udeshika Perera, Colombo

Lanka has been an advisor to primary schools in Sri Lanka for over 40 years. Later, she set up a foundation to promote creative writing by schoolchildren (and adults) and conducts workshops across the country. Udeshika has worked as an advisor to pre-schools for over 30 years. Together with Lanka, she has participated  in conducting creative writing workshops for schoolchildren.

Lavanya Karthik, Mumbai, India

Writer, illustrator, daydreamer and nap-taker, Lavanya’s books have won a few awards, been translated into many languages and travelled the world. She can be found wandering through the by-lanes of Mumbai, looking for her next story.

Lavanya Prasad, Bengaluru, India

Electrical-engineer-turned-professional-storyteller, Lavanya, believes that she makes better and lasting connections through stories rather than electrical wires. Blending music, movement, folklore and mythology, she continues to enthral people across all ages through her organization, Tale’scope.

Nadishka Aloysius, Colombo

Nadishka is a teacher, stage actor, and award-winning author who is a firm believer that #representationmatters. She writes for children and adults, conducts creative writing workshops and visits schools to celebrate Sri Lankan culture and wildlife.

Nina Sabnani, Chennai, India

Nina is an artist and storyteller who uses film, illustration and writing to tell her stories. She is the recipient of the BLBA award for Illustration from Tata Trusts. Currently she lives in Chennai.

Priya Kuriyan, Bengaluru, India

An illustrator, picture book and comics maker, Priya lives and works in the city of Bangalore and in her spare time likes to make caricatures of the city’s residents.

Rukshani Weerasooriya Wijemanne, Colombo

With a background in law, Rukshani has always enjoyed words. She loves learning them, saying them, reading them, writing them, playing with them, making them rhyme, and sometimes even making them up! 

Savio Mascarenhas, Mumbai, India

Growing up with a galaxy of characters from Tinkle and Amar Chitra Katha, Savio chose to live in this Neverland. The group art director, Amar Chitra Katha, is a TEDx speaker on the use of visuals in learning.

Shehan Karunatilaka, Colombo

The winner of multiple global awards, Shehan writes about forgotten cricketers, war photographers, chatty ghosts, self-driving cars and time travellers. His stories are absurd and mostly true.

Shenuka Corea, Colombo

Shenuka is an illustrator, comic artist, animator and cat enthusiast. She loves telling stories about nature, monsters and the magic. An MFA student at SVA’s Visual Narrative Program she is working on a graphic novel.