Channeling creativity: Book fair opens at Children’s Library Complex

Author’s Studio, film screenings, mobile bookstore part of attractions for children at two-day event.

LAHORE:

A children’s book fair will begin at the Children’s Library Complex (CLC) on Saturday (today) in collaboration with Idara-i-Taleem-o-Aagahi (ITA) and Little Art. It will continue on from 9am to 7pm on Sunday.

Raheela Naz, the ITA reading promotion programme manager, said that as many as ten publishing houses were expected to set up displays at the book fair. She said that the Oxford University Bookstore Bus and Alif Laila have been invited to bring their mobile bookshop and libraries to the event.

“We have also arranged story telling, creative writing and film screening sessions,” she said.

She said that this was an attempt at continuing the activities started by the Children’s Literature Festival (CLF) in Lahore last year.

“Of course, the CLF was held on a larger scale,” she said.

“We hope the CLC will be kept alive by regularly organising such events,” she said.

Naz, who is running reading clubs in several districts, will conduct an Author’s Studio at the book fair. She said that young children will be encouraged to express themselves via writing. “Children need to experiment with their creativity,” she said. She said both Urdu and English would be accepted.

Little Art, which initiated a travelling film festival last year, will screen short films.

Ali Hameed, head of programming for films at Little Art, said that they will screen as many as 18 short films in a three hour session. He said they were targeting children below the age of 14. He said that the films, lasting between 4 and 30 minutes, will offer entertainment and education for children.

“Visual tools are effective in imparting knowledge to children,” Hameed said.

This is the second event in Lahore in which Little Art has participated recently.

Earlier, they had participated in the Vasakh Film Festival held in April at the Forman Christian College University.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 7^th, 2012.