A magazine of features and articles for kids focussed on the world we live in. Non fiction features for children on festivals, customs, traditions, art, craft, dance, music, culture, ways of life, history, cinema, sport, champions, rare feats, artists, education, thinkers, famous people, and much more. Also articles BY kids who write on the world around them.
264 items in this section. Displaying page 18 of 27
Ali Sardar Jafri
He was a poet who spoke out for the poor. He was also one who truly believed that India and Pakistan could be friends, if the countries tried hard enough. From the time he was arrested for writing against British rule in India, to when he climbed onto the famous Lahore “peace” bus with Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee last year, Ali Sardar Jafri spent his entire working-writing life speaking out for what he believed in....
The Earth Drum
Imagine a pit covered with the skin of an ox. The hairy surface is on top and the hairy tail of the ox is still connected to the animal hide or skin. The cover is nailed to the ground at several places. And the ox tail becomes the drum stick. This is not a fantasy drum. It seems this was one of the earliest ways our ancestors in India made drums. It was called the bhoomi dundubhi or the earth drum....
The Story-tellers
What could be a better way to get to know a country than through its folk-tales and stories? And if you love collecting stories anyway, as Madhu Gurung does, nothing could be more wonderful. Here, Madhu, presently based in Myanmar’s capital, Yangon, talks about the Myanmarese duo of mother and daughter who have enlivened her days by weaving tales even as they help her with her domestic chores. Madhu shares the magic of those story-telling sessions in the following anecdote:...
The changing face of childhood dreams
Dreams – the word itself, sounds so fascinating. Everyone has different dreams. Dreams are actually our aspirations. Dreams are of different types. Some dreams, like touching the sun, are impossible. Some are extremely silly. When I was five and was asked about what I wanted to be, I used to say: “to grow up”, as if anyone could stop that! As we grow and learn about great achievers, we all secretly want to emulate them…...
Children and Water
Educators Wynne Harlen and Jos Elstgeest take us on a wonder-filled trip into the scientific world in their classic book: UNESCO sourcebook for science in the primary school, published by the National Book Trust in association with Unesco publishing. Water is a common yet exciting material, freely available almost everywhere, which lends itself to an endless variety of genuine science activities. Common as it appears to be, water can be a source of wonder to children and to adults who have kept up the habit of questioning and wondering....
The Day the Bomb Fell
Near the centre of the explosion, people were instantaneously vapourised by the seeing heat, leaving only their shadows scorched into the stonework of walls or roads. Thousands more were killed by being blown to bits, more commonly being hurled against solid subjects, crushed beneath falling buildings. Others were simply cremated into charred corpses or hideously burned with great patches of skin stipped from their bodies and hanging in flaps around them. In Hiroshima, 13 square kilometres of area was devastated and 92 per cent of its buildings were destryed....
The Woman who Collects Children
An inspiring story from our archives: June 2000 Some people like to collect stamps. Others prefer stickers, posters, tattoos or coins. But Pinky Bhutia is different. She collects children. In her mountain village, in Sikkim, she is known as the wonderful young woman who adopts all the children she can. Pinky was 14 when she adopted her first child, a Nepali orphan. Today, she has a dozen adopted children, and two sons from her marriage....
The Language of a Cat
The poet Carl Sandburg wrote, “The fog comes in on little cat feet.” So do a large number of our words and expressions. Let’s think of the cats that run and leap and pounce and slink and purr and meow through the English language. There are a number of explanations for the phrase, “it’s raining cats and dogs”? Cats and dogs were closely associated with the rain and wind in the western mythology. Dogs were often pictured as the attendants of Odin, the storm god, and cats were believed to cause rain....
Margaret Sanger
Born into an Irish working class family on Sept 14, 1879 in Corning, New York, Margaret Sanger is known for her crusade to legalise birth control which later spurred the movement for women’s liberalisation. As a young girl Margaret witnessed her mother’s slow death worn out after 18 pregnancies and 11 live births. Later while working as a nurse and midwife in the poorest neighbourhoods of New York city before World War I she saw women deprived of their health, sexuality and ability to care for children already born....
Dancing to Glory
It was a children’s dance-drama festival with a difference. At New Delhi’s LTG Auditorium recently, a group of ‘disabled’ children left the audience spellbound with their natural, joyful performances. Some of the children could not hear, others could not see or had difficulty walking. And still others were grappling with mental challenges. But that was no dampener to their spirits as they performed to an appreciative audience of eager parents, teachers and children. Dancing to Glory The Annual Inter School Dance-Drama Festival saw over 300 children from 20 schools all over Delhi, participate in the event....