Illustrations by children on display and (above) a student browses a book at the fair. Pictures by Pradip Sanyal

It was a book fair with a difference — one that saw children writing, drawing and editing for a magazine.

The June issue of Readers’ Club Bulletin, a monthly magazine brought out by the National Book Trust (NBT) for children, will comprise contributions from schoolchildren.

All the stories for the edition were written, edited and illustrated by children as part of a week-long book fair-cum-literary event, Calcutta Festival of Children’s Content, organised by NBT and the Publishers and Booksellers Guild at The Future Foundation School recently.

Students from Modern High School for Girls, The Heritage School, St. James’ School, Mansur Habibullah Memorial School and others participated in the festival “adapted and inspired by the Singapore Asian Festival of Children’s Content”.

“The event was aimed at promoting Indian literature among children and creating a platform for interaction of budding writers and illustrators,” said Manas Ranjan Mahapatra of NBT.

“Children were taught all the steps that go into the making of a book, from writing a story to designing the cover,” said Ranjan Mitter, the principal of The Future Foundation School. “Such workshops would give children the confidence to write.”

Class XII student Prarthana Mitra, who edited one of the stories, said the experience honed her writing skills. “It was not just about cutting the story but also improvising. We had to retain the flavour of the story while making it short and crisp,” said the student of humanities at Future Foundation.

The event also saw young authors interacting with each other and discussing literature.

“Children’s literature is now loaded with information rather than imagination. We want it written from a child’s point of view,” said Tista Lahiri a Class XI student at Future Foundation, who took part in a panel discussion on children’s literature in Bengali.

Several students also took part in workshops on creative writing, book illustration and poster-making.