She’s a storybook warrior whose feisty campaigns have one aim — to ensure that children always have a story at hand. Last week, British writer Wendy Cooling (in the picture) brought the battle for the book to Delhi when she stopped by for Bookaroo, India’s first literature festival for children. She held an extended session with parents and teachers to drive home her point. “In India, as in the UK, children read only for school and exams, so, obviously, they don’t like books. They link it with work. It is very important that parents and teachers take out a few minutes to encourage children to read for fun,” she said.
When should a child receive his first storybook? “Right at birth,” she said firmly. Fifteen years ago, she started a movement in the UK to bring books to the cradle. Thanks to her efforts, today every child gets a free storybook soon after he or she is born. Called Bookstart, the campaign — which had the support of the then Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown — symbolises that every person starts life with a storybook. “They can look at pictures and listen to their parents read. Research shows that babies who are exposed to books early also do better than others in school,” said the writer who received the prestigious Eleanor Farjeon award in 2006.
Cooling’s own library has biographies of famous people who have statues at Madame Tussauds like Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley and Jack the Ripper, and a fact book on Roald Dahl. She likes stories that are fun, though she says that she’s fond of Indian writers like Vikram Seth, Salman Rushdie and Arundhati Roy.