Ruskin Bond, Chetan Bhagat launch short stories by children

From imaginative tales to those filled with action and adventure to thoughtful pieces on family and friends, a compilation of 50 short stories penned by children was launched here today.
The book titled, "i-genius A Twist in the Tale" features shortlisted stories chosen by a jury comprising celebrated writers Ruskin Bond and Chetan Bhagat.
The compilation has been shortlisted out of the responses sent over 55,000 children to a young author hunt conducted by Max Lif Insurance earlier this year.
"It was an extremely difficult task to pick these 50 stories, especially amongst the entries that reached the final round, as all the young authors were very talented," Bond said.

"We looked into the story itself, then the imagination of the child and his or her ability to express. The selection is subjective, but then that's why you have a panel," Bhagat said.
The 50 finalists whose work was published by Rupa Publications also got e-book readers. Stories of 50 second prize winners have been published in a i-genius special e-book edition and have also bagged the Young Authors' Scholarship worth Rs 5000 each. There were also 400 consolation prize winners who received a children's book hamper each.

In a conversation with the young winners Bond revealed that he would have been a sumo wrestler or a rap dancer, had he not been a writer.

The author, who has written over 500 short stories essays and novellas, also shared anecdotes about his life including one about how he wrote his first ever story in school based on his teacher.
Kapish Mehra, Managing Director, Rupa Publications India said, "Reading these stories had us believe that the future of our society rests in the hands of bright, imaginative, conscientious and thoughtful children. As people who work with words, the joy that came from reading the entries was a different experience altogether."
The launch also saw a performance by students of Parikrima Foundation, who enacted one of the stories from the book.

A braille version of the compilation was also released for the visually impaired children.