Bakul Library, Bhubaneswar Videos

Happy World Book Day. Did you know that 23rd April is celebrated as World Book Day because its the birthday of William Shakespeare? These 2 excuisite collector's editions of Shakespeare's plays were gifted by little Jeevasini out of gratitude for the Library. In fact, the Bakul Library has many collector's editions and rare books all gifted by well wishers. Come down to the Bakul Library and check out the rich collection. . . . . . . . . . . . #bakul #bakulfoundation #worldbookday #worldbookday2022 #donate #promote #worldbook #worldbookday📚

Happy Birthday Jon Scieszka
“He huffed and he puffed, and he blew the house down!” This is a line most of us are familiar with. It comes from a story that is introduced to us early on in our childhood. However, have any of us paused to think about whether or not there is more to the story? In his parodic remake of the classic in ‘The Real Story of the 3 Little Pigs’, Jon Scieszka presents the story from the perspective of the “Big Bad Wolf”. He continues his parodies of famous children’s stories and fairy tales in ‘The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales’, which has stories like “The Stinky Cheese Man instead of the Gingerbread Man”, “The Really Ugly Duckling”, “Little Red Running Shorts and the “Tortoise and the Hair”. Both these books are considered classics and have been included in the list of top 100 picture books of all time. Jon is also a nationally recognized reading advocate, and the founder of Guys Read – a literacy program (both online and print) for boys whose mission is "to help boys become self-motivated, lifelong readers.” He does that by curating stories that boys like to read. It is an uncanny coincidence that he was born on 8th September, celebrated as World Literacy Day. Happy Birthday Jon for making children and young boys fall in love with reading. You can come and read his beautiful books right here at the BAKUL LIBRARY!

Human Library
The idea of the Human Library has got viral and many people have shared it suggesting that the Bakul Library organize it. Luckily for Bakul, we had done it first 10 years back in 2011. Bakul has been the demonstration of the power of volunteerism. Volunteers in turn come with their ideas. One such idea was of the Human Library that was shared by Diana Tamm of Estonia, and she had curated our first such Human Library, also called the Living Library. So, one fine day, at the Bakul Library, readers checked out different human books and borrowed from the available ones for the issue period to read them, and returned them in good condition. This has been a wonderful experiment done to counter prejudices. We often stereotype people without ever bothering to listen to alternative perspectives or attempting to understand them. The Human Library facilitates this “unjudging” of people. We have often used this tool for multicultural understanding since 2011 and to some extent for combating prejudices, but we could possibly do it more frequently once the fear of Covid subsides. #humanlibrary #library

Forest park library opens
Yippie. The new guidelines allow libraries to be open. We began by reopening the Bakul Library inside Biju Patnaik Park (popularly called Forest Park). There's lot of open space and with trees all around, its aa safe a public space as it can get. And how more romantic than reading a book while the rains falling on the trees for company. Come down to the Library anyday (Monday closed) between 7AM to 10AM and 4PM to 7PM and check out the wonderfully curated selection of books or get your own book and read.

A Color of One’s Own
The song, “Colours” by the South Korean singer-songwriter, Stella Jang, (who also writes for the pop sensation BTS) has become viral on Instagram and TikTok with many versions of it. We also, did a Bakul Library version of the song. The song celebrates difference and the different possibilities for each person. In the Bakul Library version, we saw a parallel with the Pride movement, which has a rainbow as its symbol and the different colours are symbolic of differences in sexuality. But this song at its literal level also resonates with one of the finest children’s books at the Bakul Library, “A Color of One’s Own” by Leo Lionni. In this book, which is a wonderful book to introduce colours to a child, the protagonist, a chameleon is sad that unlike parrots that are green, goldfish that are red, elephants that are gray, it does not have a colour of its own. Because the chameleon keeps changing colours according to its surroundings. Hence, it’s a wonderful book also to talk about acceptance of one’s identity and adaptation to the surroundings.

Libraries in Ganjam primary school by BAKUL
Cyclone Phailin had made landfall near Gopalpur and the area near Gopalpur and Chattrapur had been most devastated. When Bakul decided to help with relief measures, we found a lot of duplication of efforts as the Government had been quite prompt in relief measures. But the cyclone and the attendant floods had brought about massive damage in schools. Whatever existed of libraries had been destroyed. We decided to focus our energies on setting up libraries in 15 primary schools in that area with individual contributions of well wishers. Since there are very few books in Odia for children from classes 1 to 5, we had to think of 1 rack to keep the books. We decided to think out of the box, and purchased old dysfunctional refrigerators, got young artists led by Satyabhama to paint on them, and Voila, the delicious food for the brains could be stored safe in the refrigerators.