While we see many memes on parents facing difficulties in handling their children during this long lockdown, we hardly bother to think about how these children might be feeling. But someone did think of them. Bookosmia, a digital platform for stories, video stories, books and e-books, has recently launched a new initiative called Sara's 'Gratitude during COVID' Series. Nidhi Mishra, Founder and CEO, Bookosmia says, "In the past two years, we have been taking up different initiatives and one of them was publishing stories written by children. This time, we thought of this new series, Gratitude during COVID, as children are forced to remain at home because of the lockdown. Summer holidays are usually when children go out, play and learn different skills. The new series will give them a platform to talk about their emotions and what they are going through during the lockdown."
Nidhi is happy that she has received more than eighty entries so far. Children either send poems or long essays expressing gratitude for getting to stay at home and having three meals a day. She explains, "We post two poems or two essays a day. As we don't want children to develop a sense of inferiority or superiority, we post every entry that is sent. It has lead to different changes - there is meaningful engagement of children to express themselves and other children read these posts which in turn encourages them to write as well. Once, we publish their entries, we write each and every one of them a Thank You note and post it on social media."
We ask Nidhi if there is that one essay that she has read that has made her feel happy. She narrates, "A class VII student had written about 'privilege' and his gratitude towards having all the facilities. I was really happy reading it and could not stop thinking of how such a young boy could write something like this. A lot of international journals have come forward to feature these kids and publish their work. Every day, at least 1,000 to 1,500 people view these posts, like and comment on them too. Hence, there is a massive audience engagement." Nidhi feels that after the lockdown, their next step would be to explore different formats to publish children's works on their websites and engage more children across the nation.
Nidhi recommends these books for kids:
- For four year olds - The Sringeri Srinivas Series
- For six year olds - Fantastically Great Women Who Changed the World and Barefoot Husain
- For 12 year olds - Persepolis, a graphic novel by Marjane Satrapi