Vidya Sagar, an organisation that works with people with disabilities, hosted a panel discussion with authors and publishers who have written and published books on children with disabilities, at the Madras School of Economics on Saturday.

“There are very few books that can be accessed by children with disabilities,” said Rajul Padmanabhan, director, Vidyasagar. “It is important to include them in the school syllabus,” she said.

The participants were Shobha Viswanath, Sujata Padmanabhan, Zai Whitaker and Zainab Sulaiman, all of whom have written books featuring children with disabilities, and Namita Jacob, who converted early reading books and made them accessible for all.

“ It is important to adopt more disability-related stories,” said Sujatha Padmanabhan, who received the best picture book-story award for ‘Bumboo…The Donkey who would not budge’ at The Hindu Young World-Goodbooks Awards, 2016. “The book is about a donkey which had night blindness, the story reflects my experience with disabled children,” she said.

Fun way of learning

Namitha Jacob showed the audience a touch-and-feel tactile book, ‘Feely Bugs’. “Here, children can touch and identify different types of bugs such as lacy bugs, leathery bugs and fuzzy bugs just by touching it. This is a fun way of learning,” she said. “Sadly, children with disabilities do not have fun like the others. They are always educated on what toy to play with and how to play instead of being let carefree like the others,” she said.

At the event, Parag (a Tata Trusts initiative), Vidya Sagar and Duckbill Books declared open a contest for authors who are interested in writing stories for children, featuring children with disabilities.

For further details, email platypus@duckbill.in.
Source: http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/chennai/disabled-children-need-greater-access-to-books/article9314106.ece?ref=tpnews