The adventures of a travelling children’s literature festival

It is not unusual to reflect on things when a milestone is just around the corner. In the case of Bookaroo Children’s Literature Festival, November 2026 is an important milestone month. On the seventh of that month, the Festival turns 18. What better time to reminisce than when the festival is poised on the threshold of ‘adulthood’ – and what better time than now to reflect on the dozen-and-a-half years that have gone by in a flash. As with life, so with festivals – albums are referred to, friendships are celebrated, and nostalgia takes over. At the same time, the road ahead looks exciting even as uncertainty lurks at some turns. But that can wait.

A journey of firsts

The Bookaroo journey has been a journey of firsts – not just for us but for our allies too. It is the first-ever children’s literature festival in the country. It was the first time when the children took centre-stage in a literature festival with the adults as a necessary accessory. It was the first time that publishers threw in their collective weight behind a festival that was an unknown quantity. It was a first for international arts councils to witness a literature festival for children and that too in India. 

However, they did not hold back their enthusiasm. Support was full and unconditional. For many of our sponsors too, it was something unheard of, untested, but still exciting enough to be associated with. It was also the first time that children’s writers, illustrators and storytellers found themselves a common platform to meet their audience.

Back in August 2008, when a motley bunch of booklovers got together to talk about the idea of a literature festival, nobody had a clue what they were letting themselves in for. The one thing that everyone agreed upon was this – there needs to be a literature festival for children, especially as Indian writing for children was all set to take off. And so a very ambitious deadline of the last weekend of November was marked on the calendar.

With just three months to go, the action was frenetic. Authors and illustrators and storytellers had to be called for dates, the organization had to be registered, sponsors chased, supporters had to be met and, very importantly, a venue had to be chosen.

Oh, the places…

Talking about venues, Sanskriti Anand Gram was a dream come true. And it came about by accident. One of the founders stumbled upon the beautiful artists’ residency on a September morning when she walked in through the gates of Sanskriti into the enormous banyan tree in the front lawn. “The Storytelling Tree,” she exclaimed excitedly. A mix of museums, studios, open air theatres and green spaces, Sanskriti was an ideal launch platform.

The festival did quite a bit of travelling – both in the city and elsewhere in the country. Travelling with Bookaroo was not about what to pack and take, it was more about where to take it and why. After two years in Sanskriti, the festival had to relocate as the numbers and parking forced our hand. In 2010, Bookaroo moved to the lawns of the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA) located in the heart of Lutyens’ Delhi. As home for a children’s literature festival every November, IGNCA had everything a child could dream of. Unfortunately, IGNCA does not exist anymore. The festival turned nomadic for a brief while, moving to India Gate (Children’s Park), the National Rail Museum, and the CBT building in Chanakyapuri till another verdant green sanctuary fell into our laps or vice versa. Sunder Nursery, in Nizamuddin, has been home to Bookaroo since 2023.

…we went to

Bookaroo’s outstation trips began in 2011 with Srinagar, the only city in which, for various reasons, Bookaroo is held in the grounds of a school. DPS, nestled at the foot of a large hill, has big spaces as well as nooks and crannies that make for interesting discoveries.

The urge to explore more cities grew stronger till, in 2013, we decided that Pune would be an interesting venue because of its profile as the ‘cultural capital’ of Maharashtra. Moreover, we had an invite from Sakal Times. One of the exciting parts of organising the festival is always scouting for a venue. In Pune, the recce comprised trips to Empress Garden, Pu La Deshpande Park, and Bund Garden before we chose Sambhaji Park. 

Some of the interesting venues in other cities were Kuching’s State Library, Pustaka Negari (in Sarawak), Goa’s Campal Garden, Ahmedabad’s Mill Owners Building, Jaipur’s Jawahar Kala Kendra, Kolkata’s National Museum, Bengaluru’s Freedom Park, Vadodara’s Art District in Alembic City, Bhopal’s Bharat Bhavan, Kohima’s Raj Bhavan-Heritage House combo, a village school in Bali (Rajasthan, not Indonesia) and Kamatha in Colombo’s BMICH. In September 2025, Shillong became the latest destination in an adventure that shows no signs of slowing down. 18 years, 18 cities, and 52 editions later, one can afford to look back in quiet satisfaction. In all this, it is the leg work that one remembers and the children’s faces as each edition in a city winds to a close.

Bookaroo stories

When a festival is closing in on two decades, there are bound to be stories that are not part of the programme and won’t be there on any brochure of the festival. There were many interesting incidents that happened and some of them pop up in the mind’s eye long after the action has died down. 

In the very first Bookaroo, we had a family landing up in the venue bang in the middle of the preparations at 11 PM because their child’s school had told them that the festival’s opening time was 11. We did the only thing we could – take them on a sneak-peek guided pre-fest tour. They were back in the morning at 11 AM. 

The ‘sideline’ moments kept getting more interesting. A snake rescue job just when the sessions for the day were about to begin, a monk who prayed at the venue and the rain held for exactly the two days of the festival, a speaker travelling on the Sarawak river to meet her audience had to change boats mid-stream in pouring rain because of a mechanical failure in the first one (no small feat considering how unsteady it could get and that she was dressed immaculately in a sari), a visually-impaired child recognising the author who was visiting the school for the first time because he had heard her on tape sometime in the past, a sponsor pulling out at the last minute, mid-festival waterproofing of the venue because a cyclone ripped through the city, the impromptu late-night music sessions with writers singing away, on the ghats of Ganga to buses taking them to Pahalgam, some of them boisterously and, in one instance, the festival directors driving a minibus (the only vehicle available) from the venue down a narrow, fair-weather, country lane through a forest in pitch-black darkness and meeting up with a herd of buffaloes wanting right of way. Scary? Yes. Impasse? No, they had figured out that we were paralysed with apprehension and brushed their way past, nonchalantly.

Flashback

What started off as small, one-off events in a 190-sq-ft children’s bookstore, Eureka!, in Delhi’s Alaknanda, 23 years ago, became a movement. A movement that focused on spreading the joy of reading. The feeling that one could expand these smaller sessions into a large central location for a children’s literature festival that would be for the entire city became stronger as we worked out plans (incidentally, the store has now moved to Meherchand Market and is still the nerve-centre for Bookaroo’s operations).

Considering the climate in Delhi, the team felt that the last weekend of November would be an ideal time. A chance announcement at an official conference of publishers, arts councils, writers, and illustrators meant that it was a commitment – and the grapevine started working overtime. 

Curious enquiries started coming in even before one could arrive back at the bookstore after the meeting. Everybody wanted to do something to help the festival idea take off and take root. They all pitched in. One of our first visits was to what was then the Habitat Children’s Book Forum run by Deepa Agarwal and Devika Rangachari. The Who’s Who of children’s books of that time – and publishing in general – backed the festival, enthusiastically. It was a thrilling experience and it is as thrilling putting things together, 18 years down the line. 

The inaugural team included Urvashi Butalia, Anita Roy from Zubaan and Young Zubaan, Manisha Chaudhry of Pratham Books, authors Subhadra Sen Gupta (sadly, the pandemic took her away from us) and Anushka Ravishankar, Jo Williams from the Red House Children’s Book Awards, Swati Roy of Eureka! and literary agent Mita Kapur. From a global point of view, Wendy Cooling, the founder of the Bookstart programme in the UK, stood staunchly by the festival travelling up and down from London and not missing a single year’s edition up until 2018 when cancer suddenly struck and two years later she left us. 

Flash forward…

Bookaroo is not about just storytelling. Craft, workshops, dramatized readings and art are weaved into the curation. Every session in the two-day festival is connected to a book that has been published. Bookaroo is not just about children. It is also about parents, teachers, librarians and anyone who has ever met or known a child. It also serves as a meeting point for the creators themselves who, thanks to an increasing digital world, do not get to meet physically at times. The format of open engagement rather than a theatre style talk has led to many instances of authors and illustrators receiving frank – sometimes brutal – feedback about the book that they have written and are talking about. What could be more gratifying than that?

The festival’s charm also lies in the fact that the day-long sessions are held in a mix of magical outdoor and indoor spaces. We try and choose the venues with as much care as we curate the sessions for every age from the 4-year-old to the 14-year-old. 

Being a children’s literature festival is not easy. Moreover, Bookaroo’s decisions are not corporate strategy, where huge profits decide where to go and how. The organization is a Trust that depends on donations, CSR support and grants to meet its costs. Bookaroo would rather have a local connect with local support and local eyeballs or footfalls that are interested in literature for the sake of literature than an ROI-based support system that measures its profits. Funding was tough 18 years ago, it still is. It has not been roses all the way. But we carry on, regardless. There is some invisible fairy godmother that takes us through and we survive another year.

A big high came about nine years ago. On a January morning, there came a mail from the organisers of the London Book Fair with a confidential message informing us that the festival had been shortlisted at The London Book Fair International Excellence Awards 2017 for The Literary Festival Award. Along with it came an invite to attend the awards ceremony in London a couple of months later. Being shortlisted was a big deal in itself. However, we made a no-expectations journey for the presentation ceremony in March. As it happened, the festival emerged a winner. 

… and forward

Recognition with an award, much as it is appreciated, may not be a big indicator of a literature festival’s success. As an organisation, what makes us proud is that Bookaroo inspired a slew of literature festivals for children across the country. That was the real icing on the cake. So, what exactly does Bookaroo mean? In a nutshell it means books are fun and that the festival serves as a stage to enjoy them. In an increasingly competitive world full of takeaways for children so that parents think it is worthwhile, Bookaroo has stood and will continue to stand for the idea of slowing down and reading for pleasure. There are no badges to be earned. For anyone. One doesn’t even need to buy a ticket to attend Bookaroo’s sessions, you just walk in and find a place to sit. Bookaroo also means spreading the joy of reading and reading for pleasure locally, regionally and globally.

For the child, the message is simple: Run around, play, pick up a book or meet an author, illustrator, or storyteller. There is something on offer for every age group at every hour of the festival. Bookaroo is a dream that became a beautiful reality and went on to become India’s most travelled festival. The festival has been fortunate enough to be loved by children everywhere. 

That will, hopefully, not fade. That hope leads us to four cities this year. Delhi and Bhopal during the first two weekends of October, Srinagar on the first Sunday of November and Vadodara on the second weekend of December.