School trip to the Bookaroo Festival

On Saturday, 25th November, 2017, children of The Indian School-Second Shift of classes III and IV visited the Bookaroo Book Festival at The Childrens Park near India Gate. Bookaroo, Indias first childrens literature festival, celebrated its 10th birthday on the 25th and 26th November. Over 50 award-winning writers, illustrators, poets and storytellers, including 18 from outside India participated in this festival.

To begin with, the children proceeded to the auditorium where the Executive Director and CEO of the Wildlife Trust of India, Mr. Vivek Menon gave a presentation on the wild mammals of India. Mr. Menon is a wildlife conservationist, author and photographer with a passion for elephants. The session was highly interactive as he kept all the children engaged by continually asking questions.

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The secret life of wild mammals was laid bare by Mr. Menon. He told the children about ungulates, even toed ungulates, hares, pikas and rabbits, pangolins, shrews, moles, hedgehogs, rodents, whales, dolphins, dugongs and the most endangered species i.e. the Pigmy Hog, the Chinese Pangolin, Flying Squirrel, Tiger, Elephants and the rhinoceros.

Mr. Menon also shared amazing facts about deer that shed their horns every year, porcupines that run backwards and throw their spines at the enemy when threatened and facts about Asian elephants amongst whom only the males have tusks. On the other hand, all African elephants, both, male and female, have tusks.

There was a quiz for the children at the end of the presentation. Of the three final contestants, Alvira of class IV, made her mark by giving the right answer.

After this, the children took an overview of the festival by browsing through the stalls and their shelves. At one stall where they were given small pieces of paper to draw something of their creative choice. All of them quickly got engrossed and seemed meditative in those moments! They drew eyes, trees, flowers, butterflies etc. A few students sought permission to carry back their art for their parents to see.

Alas, our fun-filled trip to the Bookaroo Festival came to a close soon. We snacked on our tidbits from home as we sang and giggled as we carried back our collections of valuable information home.