How this children's lit fest is nudging kids to find their own stories

Take risks, make mistakes, wander and chart your own path—that seems to be the overarching message that the organisers of Neev Literature Festival (NLF), one of the few children’s literature festivals in the country, wants to convey to its young audience. The theme of the festival, which is in its eighth edition, is ‘Stumble upon your next story’.

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“The current generation of parents wants their kids to be perfect all the time, and have a path charted out for them. They are always telling them not to make mistakes or take any risks. With this theme, we want to convey the opposite message,” says Kavita Sabharwal, co-founder of NLF and director of Neev Trust, Bengaluru. “We want to encourage children to explore, wander and make mistakes. We want to tell them that it's okay to not be perfect.”

Curated by Karthika Gopalakrishnan—the festival director—, the sessions or ‘masterclasses’, to be held between 28-29 September in Yemlur, a suburb in Bengaluru, seem to have been designed to provide kids just that light nudge they need. ‘Epic Journeys’, a session with author Manu Pillai, moderated by Samhita Arni, will see him talk among other things about his own reading journey. Another highlight is a masterclass, titled Understanding a Writer’s Craft, by children’s author and Newbury honoree Adam Gidwitz about finding their voice and expressing it on page.  

In addition to Pillai and Gidwitz, other recognizable names include illustrator Sophie Blackall who is a two-time Caldecott Medalist, award-winning illustrator Rohan Chakravarty, writers Vaishali Shroff and Anushka Ravishankar, among others. According to Sabharwal, a lot of attention is paid to the choice of writers, especially the international ones. “As a policy, we only bring in [international] writers, who have a large body of work, and might have won major awards such as the Newbery Prize for fiction, Caldecott Medal—in case of illustrators—, and the Sibert Medal if the books are non-fiction. They need to be able to demonstrate their proficiency to our young readers and Indian writers as well,” she adds.

She rues that the children's literature market in India is woefully small. “The US market for children’s literature is 30 times the size of India, and is valued at around ₹25,000 crores. In India, in comparison, the value is around Rs.700 crores,” she says. There is a gaping disparity between the average spend on children’s books between the US and India. Sabharwal cites a 2022 report by the NLF, which stated that the average spend in the US is ₹20,000, while in India, we seem to spend less than ₹20. “Encouraging kids to read is the only way to reduce learning poverty. For a growing country with a demographic dividend like ours, we should be investing a lot more in making this space grow,” she adds.

The literature fest may be a small attempt at changing things, but it seems to be working. “The event has gotten into people’s calendars. Schools are bringing their students each year for the event. We have attendees coming from Mumbai, Delhi, Faridabad, Chennai and Hyderabad, among other cities,” says Sabharwal. While readers are important, the lit fest invests in writers as well. The Neev Book Award, carrying a cash prize of ₹3 lakh, will be given to single titles across all categories this year, Sabharwal adds.

Neev Literature Festival 2024 is being held on 28-29 September in Bengaluru.

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