What's the best thing that can happen to a bookworm apart from finding more books to read? Finding a kindred spirit to share the books with! In this quest, Krishna Kranthi Ganagalla started toying with the idea of Wlaret Consultants back in 2017. "I was introduced to the wonderful world of books by a professor while pursuing my MBA from SP Jain Institute of Management and Research, Mumbai, and that changed everything. I wanted to recommend interesting books to children at a much younger age," says the 33-year-old. Thus, he went through a list of over 10,000 books and identified 100 books as per his discretion and the reviews on Amazon and Goodreads, and went on to divide them as per the appropriate age group that should be reading them. But the Hyderabadi youngster knew that recommending was not enough, to pry them away from a world full of distractions, he needed something to sweeten the deal. Hence, he offers prizes and the benchmark is to finish one book a month. If you successfully finish reading 12 books in a year, you can win a Kindle!
When he was done with the task of curating the books in 2018-2019, he got in touch with several schools in Hyderabad and other cities and offered this — he requested schools to email parents introducing this offer and leave it up to them to take it up. As many as 15 schools, including Aarambh The Pre School in Hyderabad, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan in Raipur and Birla High School, Kolkata, signed up for it.
The process is that once a student signs up, five books are declared on Wlaret's website and the child needs to pick one book. After they finish reading, the next five books are unlocked. "We verify if the child has actually read the book in two ways, their review posted on Goodreads and a question about the book. From the sixth book, we ask the question on the phone," shares Krishna Kranthi, the author of the book MBA is not about Money, Blazer, Arrogance. We are told that two kids have already won the coveted kindle and more are on their way. "The schools were not very encouraging since they are academically-inclined. But the feedback we have received from the students is that their writing skills and even their academic performance has become better," he says with satisfaction.
"The trick lies in suggesting the right books otherwise the kid can disengage easily. If they are hooked on the right books, it will prove very helpful for them in the future," he says and concludes.
Books on their list:
- The Autobiography of Albert Einstein by Gerhard Roth
- Matilda by Roald Dahl
- Grandma's Bag of Stories by Sudha Murty
- Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by JK Rowling
For more on them, check out wlaret.com
