‘ How long does it take for book to go from worn pages, with some spelling mistakes and bad handwriting, to an actual book?’

A month? Guessed some of the boys at Kailash Vidyamandir.

‘ It took me six years!’ said John, much to their amusement.

John Coy,the author of the picture books Night Driving (1996), Strong to the Hoop (1999), Vroomaloom Zoom (2000), Two Old Potatoes and Me (2003) and Around the World (2005) visited Kailash Vidyamandir and conducted a story telling session, as well as a discussion on the writing process.

Eleven students, all part of the Share Stories Open Minds program, and some writers and poets themselves, participated in the session. John first took them through the process of how a writer actually writes a book and the effort that must go into it. John showed them some of his own manuscripts, and told them about the importance of re writing and working hard to make the story the best that you can.

They then did some story reading together. The stories that John used had a lot of sounds and some actions, which the boys enjoyed. They also enjoyed the illustrations accompanying the stories. John explained to them the process by which illustrators work,

‘ Is the story a dream?’ asked one of the boys after listening to Vroomaloom Zoom. John told them that stories can be about anything, adding that both Night Driving and Strong to the Hoop were imaginary. Stories can be about things that happened, things that could have happened and things that never happened.

One boy who loves drawing, wanted to know how exactly the art work in Strong to the Hoop was created,and another who enjoys storytelling asked how one should start writing a story, or rather, with what.

A good one hour spent with stories as well as learning from a children’s book author, about what it actually means to be an author-an hour well spent!

–Paroma Sengupta