Summer book reading club invites authors to interact with Mumbai’s young readers

An illustration from Sethi’s self-published book

Summer vacations are in their second leg. If you are looking for a family activity that keeps both you and your children engaged and away from the city's hubbub, we suggest you sign up for Nehru Science Library's Summer Book Reading Club. Beginning from today, the gathering is spread over six days. It will invite authors to interact with Mumbai's young readers.

The public library aims to promote the habit of reading as a family

"The book club will be hosted alongside our ongoing summer reading month, Let's Read Together (LRT), where we encourage families to bring their children and pore over the vast collection of content in the public library. We have nearly 40,000 books, apart from reading material in the form of journals, research papers, documents, magazines and newspapers. The library caters to all age groups. It makes for the perfect place for a family to read together," shares Arati N Desai, librarian and documentation officer.

While LRT is a 45-day-long family book reading month, the book club will invite one author everyday over the next six days in the morning. Curated by Lubaina Bandukwala, all books chosen are newly published. "Right from a 10-year-old Shanaya Sethi's The Butterfly With No Colour to septuagenarian Katie Bagli's 17-volume-long books on Society and Environmental Governance, we are not only keeping this event open to people across age groups, but have also invited authors from a varying demographic!" an excited Desai shares.

Shanaya Sethi

Sethi, a fifth-grader, tells this writer over a call from Nagpur that her book centres on a butterfly, who unlike her vibrant friends, has no colour. "Through this story, I wanted to convey that it is okay to feel that you are different from the others around you; everybody has their own special quality," the science enthusiast shares. Other authors who will read out from their latest books include Nandita Da Cunha, Bharti Singh, Pooja Gupta Mahurkar, and Kunjal Shah and Janhvi Langde.

On: May 27 to June 1; 10.30 am to 12.30 pm
At: Nehru Centre Library, 1st floor, Discovery of India Building, Nehru Centre, Worli.
Email: nehrucentrelibrary@gmail.com (for registrations)

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