A festival a day...

Kids celebrating festivals make for great visuals. With this imagery, Celebrate: Your Fun Festival Series has packed in stories, activities and Bollywood play lists to help re-visit festivals, keeping the fervour and tradition intact

Kids love festivals. Period. What better way to ensure they have a blast than by packaging all of its flavours, tidbits and stories into a fun installment? Hachette India's recently launched Celebrate series, is a potpourri that promises to keep the average kid engaged. Packed with a collection of stories, folk tales, activities and fun trivia about these Raksha Bandhan and Bhai Dooj, this book is targeted at readers from 8-12 years. However, this doesn't mean grown-ups should stay away.

Vatsala Kaul Banerjee

Contemporary storylines written in a language that is in sync with today's generation, the stories by Rituparna Chatterjee, Roopa Pai, Ani Sengupta and other upcoming storytellers make for a delightful anthology about brothers and sisters. The fun activities and diary sections wereu00a0 refreshing; we also liked the festival playlist that featured a mix of Bollywood's most popular hits picturised on these festivals. We asked Vatsala Kaul Banerjee, Editorial Director, Children's and Reference Books, Hachette India for her views on this new trend of festival-themed books and why Indian kids will love the idea.

Are kids these days keen on celebrating festivals? Why would they want to pick up this book/series?
Yes, festivals mean HOLIDAYS! And also they mean Mom and Dad are home; the kids get their favourite eats without any conditions, new clothes, lots of gifts and their parents overlooking their mischief. Some have their grandparents over and even from their parents they get to hear stories about these festivals, how they were celebrated in their times and so on. This title is a one-stop book that collects all the festival fun in one place and answers many of the questions kids (or even their parents) may have about the festival -- so there are contemporary stories, folktales, myths and legends about the festival and what's more -- fun activities related to the festival or festival theme. So, some kids may pick it up for the stories and then discover the fun activities; some may pick it up for the activities and discover that stories are great; and some may pick it for the myths and legends; and some for all of it!

How did the idea for this series come about? Did it involve any background research?
Well, it just came out of our heads. There's nothing in the market like this. There are books on festivals, but none of them make it modern and fun for today's kids while providing them the origin stories as well and lots of activities. It's total 'funfotainment' (fun+information+ entertain- ment).

How did you select the contributing authors?
As we usually do ufffd by invitingu00a0 leading writers of children's fiction, such as Deepa Agarwal, Roopa Pai and Anu Kumar, and some new writers (for us) such as Rituparna Chatterjee and Ani Sengupta. This mix appeals to different children from different backgrounds.

The content is racy, contemporary and engaging: how much of a challenge was it to create the right mix for the target reader?
Every children's book is a challenge, and it is equally an enjoyable experience to create something different from the usual (and easy) run, something that will engage them, something that they will want to read! It shouldn't become a chore or something they have to do. We try to create books that help children to enjoy reading and make it something they want to do!

Where is Indian children's fiction headed?
That's a BIG question, but I believe it's headed into a very exciting phase. More players are entering this field and the potential is huge. We have to keep maintaining good writing, superb illustrations and world-class production in books to encourage a dynamic and growing market.

Celebrate: Your Fun Festival Handbook Series, Rakhi & Bhai Dooj, Hachette India, Rs 195.

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