Book nooks for the young

Isn't it great that the library is losing its 'shhh' and straight-back chairs? Instead it has a floor strewn with cushions and beanbags, and shelves stocked with building blocks and doodle pens. What's On visits one such fun place

Bring the book into their world, as opposed to going the other way around, says Sheela Anagolum, who has set up Out of the Box, a library and activity centre for ages 3-16 in JP Nagar. So she uses everything from TV shows to theatre to spark an interest in books.
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Her methods may be pushing creative boundaries, but they help to extend storytelling beyond the traditional covers of a book. The way she sees it, a library is a place of adventure where games are played and ghosts are slayed.

Sheela and her husband Srinivas, who relocated to Bangalore from the US three years ago, rue the lack of child-friendly public libraries in the city. Their quest to find a vibrant space for their two sons in South Bangalore led them to start Out of the Box. The three-storey building has a library on the ground floor, an activity centre, a TV room and restrooms on the first floor, and a rooftop area to host birthday parties.

The fun stuff

The activities include story telling, where the resource person (a techie, in this case) makes tales of dogs, horses and owls very believable and compelling. The plan works. Very soon, a clutch of 4-5 year olds is determinedly making its way to the shelves that stock animal stories.

"We discovered that everybody donates books. The important thing is to have the right persons as resource persons. You're better off with one person and two books than with just 50 books," says Sheela, who spends a lot of time networking with artistes, writers, teachers and theatre people.

This summer, she is planning to use books that briskly unfold the story of science. She is sure that children's natural curiosity about the far places of the earth will lead them to such books.

Leafing through deep-sea adventurers and tales of dragon-slayers in the roomy library, all I need is a quilt and a cup of hot chocolate. And I'm ready to grow younger (and more imaginative) by the day.

Where: Out of the Box is at No. 44, 1st Main, WGHC Society, JP Nagar 7th Phase, B'lore-78.
Ph: 4095 9668

Hoodunit!
Umesh Malhotra, Founder-CEO of Hippocampus, The Experience Centre, at Koramangala and Shankarapuram, is thrilled that the city is sprouting more children's libraries.

Hippocampus, with its mascot Hoo the hippo, is the pioneer of such fun spaces. How does it feel?
Great, because the intention, when we started Hippocampus, was to encourage more people to start libraries. More importantly, we wanted to demonstrate that such libraries are viable business models. While we don't franchise, we are ready to offer suggestions, gyaan and branding advice with interested people who want to create spaces for children to come in and be children. People from Pune, Mumbai, Nasik and Jaipur have come here to discuss our business model.

What's the next exciting bit of news from Hippocampus?
We are working on reviving garage libraries. 'Give me a corner and I'll give you the world', is our tagline. India has a great concept like the kirana store, then why not the kirana library?u00a0

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