India

The Parag Initiative has been working for over a decade towards promoting reading among children and supporting the children’s literature sector in India. It believes in the transformative power of reading.  It works to strengthening the children’s literature sector as well as making good books accessible to children, and is committed to a focus on the disadvantaged communities.

The Parag Initiative joined IBBY in January 2024.

• Book Development: Parag supports development of good books by working with independent publishers. 900+ good quality books, original and translations, have been published in over 15 different Indian languages, with estimated readership 40 million in schools, community libraries and homes.
• Library: The school library programme aims to create spaces where children read for pleasure, feel welcome, and engage in activities around books that help them engage.  Parag currently enables 6000+ libraries in schools and communities across 8 states in India.
• Professional Development: Parag offers a blended professional development course, the Library Educators Course (LEC), and Children’s Library Course (CLC), and the E-Course, an introductory online course on children’s libraries.
• Recognitions: Parag awards authors and illustrators for their significant contribution to children’s literature in India through the ‘Big Little Book Award’ and by launching a ‘Parag Honour List’ of outstanding books in Hindi and in English through the Parag Honour List, annually.
• Events for publicity, promotion and sector building: Parag collaborates with literature festivals, organisations, book stores and various stakeholders of the sector for building  discourse on reading promotion and children’s literature.

• News: Discover the Parag Honour List 2024!
  26/07/24 — The Parag Honour List (PHL) 2024 was launched and the winner illustrator of the Big Little Book Award (BLBA) 2024 was felicitated on 29^th June, 2024 at the Parag Utsav (utsav is a Hindi word, means celebration). The event was Parag Utsav: Celebrating Indian Children's Literature. For the first time we brought together our two efforts for Recognition - while Big Little Book Award recognises the creators (authors and illustrators), Parag Honour List recognises the created (books).
  To the Parag IBBY Honour List: https://www.paragreads.in/parag-reads/parag-honour-list-2024/
  To the BLBA 2024 - https://www.paragreads.in/parag-nurtures/big-little-book-award/blba-2024/

• Article: Cover story on Parag Initiative in Horizons magazine
  The Parag Initiative is on a mission to spread the word on reading, to create an ecosystem that enables children to embrace the world of books... Read more

• Article: "A wealth of treasure to dip into"
  Read-alouds have so much power. Most people understand that reading contributes to an increase in the development of essential language skills and fosters imagination and creativity in children. However, developing a love for reading goes way beyond this... Read more