What was heartening, however, was to witness mostly young delegates turning in to brainstorm about children’s content and the various ways to express the idea of play. There were, of course, other participants, ranging from primary school teachers to freelance writers and illustrators, to name a few. The annual conference on various aspects of children’s content, with a highlight on the theme ‘Let’s Play’ this year, was inaugurated on 25 August by Martin Hanz, deputy chief of mission, the German Embassy, New Delhi.

Stressing on the fact that children’s literature underlies and dominates the whole entertainment industry, Nury Vittachi, a writer of children’s books, in his keynote address, spoke about the importance of children’s content creators. In the freewheeling yet thought-proving and entertaining talk, Vittachi touched upon subjects as varied as size of body parts in ‘Cinderella’ to ancient Chinese tales and the idea of creativity in Asia.

In the session on the idea of play in children’s books’, author Sophie Benini Pietromarchi, encouraged everyone to go play with children, go on a treasure hunt and collect all the treasures to be able to create magic on a page. “Ask yourself if your design allows your reader to experience the book,” she said, “The process of creating a children’s book is not simplification but rather a going back to the essentials. As a creator, you have a second chance at being a child.” 

Vittachi spoke about harnessing a child’s creativity, entertaining everyone with the story of how ‘Mr Edward Teddy Bear’ became ‘Winnie the Pooh’, and how AA Milne’s son Christopher Robin came up with the name. As humour works different ways between adults and children, Vittachi said it is important to examine how we can learn to play as adults again.

Amukta Mahapatra, currently involved in a committee which is reviewing ‘activity-based learning and its variations’ in seven states in India, begun the session, ‘Playschool: play in and as pedagogy,’ saying that often adults use ‘play’ patronisingly with children and this defeats the purpose, harming a child’s natural instinct. Children take play very seriously, but, she said our education system allows for very little play and exploring. “A child’s natural tendencies are suppressed, and learning is imposed on children via outdated models. There is a need for awareness so that we allow children to live spontaneously,” she said.

EK Shaji of Judo Gyan demonstrated simple yet effective ways to teach children how to grasp mathematical concepts. “Start from the world of a child’s experiences and take them to the world of mathematics, teach through experiences, touch, feel, converse, and base activities on things which are close to children,” Shaji said.

Sujata Noronha, sharing her work at the Bookworm Trust in Goa, which believes in taking good books to children, spoke about the difficulty in finding books that relate to children’s contexts in India, books that spoke about death and anger, etc.

The final session of the day was on transmedia storytelling, tilted ‘Playpen’, featuring speakers Jiggy George, Ralph Möllers and Padmini Ray Murray. Allaying the fears that the new and evolving medias are sounding death-knell for the conventional children’s books, Möllers said, “Multimedia is not the end of the book as we know it, but rather that when content works, it creates new markets.” Jiggy George added: “The book never goes away. Everything else is an extension.”

The second day of Jumpstart on August 26 had three massive masterclasses for writers, illustrators and on transmedia storytelling. There was also a workshop for teachers in collaboration with Pratham Books, a publisher of children’s content.

In his masterclass, Vittachi continued to engross his audience through his effortless animation and his way with voices. During the class, while Vittachi introduced three basic forms of story arcs, his students not only problematised the plot structures but introducing new characters within the stories. New and innovative ideas for story creation methodology were also toyed with. Finally, Vittachi’s talked about everything a children’s story should contain, the dos, the don’ts and the never-evers.

In her class, Pietromarchi, on the other hand, asked her students to actually do the work, first to think on the world ‘game’, and then create a storyboard, on paper, with pencils. For everyone present, it was an invigorating experience. As Pietromarchi said, “It’s good to share. Only when you share do you begin to feel immersed in imagination.”