BENGALURU: Twenty-one out of the 126 nominations that Neev Literature Festival received from 25 publishers have been shortlisted for the annual Neev Book Award for children’s literature. An integral part of the festival, which will be held online in August, is that the award recognises writing for children which delves into a better understanding of India, and the lives and stories of the country. Owing to the pandemic, the festival has been turned online this year, and dates are yet to be decided.
Quoting Rabindranath Tagore, Kavita Gupta Sabharwal, co-founder of the event, said, “Life must not be the infinite elongation of a straight line. The pandemic has bent if not broken every line in society. But it has also given us the time and space to understand ourselves better, and understanding ourselves is a prerequisite to understanding others. The award recognises that stories not only make us human and humane, but we are the stories we tell our children.” She added that the award shortlists are diverse children’s stories from India that cover history, environment, adventure, fantasy, biographies, and realistic fiction. “Essentially it synthesises the challenges and excitement of a rapidly changing and rising India,” she says.
The award was open to all publishers for children’s titles published in India in 2019. It had four categories – Picture Books, Emerging Readers, Junior Readers and Young Adult. The winners, who will be announced later this year, will receive a cash prize of `1 lakh each along with a citation. Some of the nominations are Rattu & Poorie’s Adventures in 1857 by Parvati Sharma, and Friend of Numbers by Priya Narayanan in the Emerging Readers category. In the Junior Readers category, the nominations include All of Me by Venita Coelho, and Flyaway Boy by Jane De Suza. In the Young Adult category, the shortlist includes Being Gandhi by Paro Anand and The Prince by Samhita Arni, while in the Picture Book category, it includes Ammama’s Sari by author-illustrator Niveditha Subramaniam), and In My Heart by author Nandana Dev Sen and illustrator Ruchi Mhasane.