Share your books with underprivileged kids

Having relished the sentimental delights of the Chicken Soup For the Soul series of books, Akanksha Dugar, 14, decided she wanted to share these reading pleasures with other, less fortunate children.

Having relished the sentimental delights of the Chicken Soup For the Soul series of books, Akanksha Dugar, 14, decided she wanted to share these reading pleasures with other, less fortunate children.

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Dugar, a Class 9 Queen Mary's school student donated three of these books last week to help in building 'The Aviva Great Wall of Education', presented by the Hindustan Times.

The wall was inaugurated at the High Street Phoenix in Lower Parel on Thursday.

"These books mean a lot to me so I wanted to share them with others to expose them to other people's lives," said Dugar.

The book wall initiative will be open until December 5 for people to donate their books. These books will then be distributed among underprivileged children.

The initiative has already gone to 200 schools and collected books through drop-boxes placed at different locations.

Chief guest Deepika Padukone inaugurated the wall at noon on Thursday by placing her own set of literary donations. She brought with her copies of Black Beauty, Anne of Green Gables and The Swiss Family Robinson.

"It's important that we spread the message of literacy, education and reading for recreation," said Padukone, at the inauguration.

"I'm really happy that I got an opportunity to be here."

Others who donated books included theatre personality Raell Padamsee and city mayor, Shraddha Jadhav.

Aviva Marketing Director, Gaurav Rajput, national culture editor at the Hindustan Times, Mayank Shekhar, and centre director of High Street Phoenix, Rajendra Kalkar, were also present.

A host of events continued through the day, with a group of young theatre enthusiast staging a play on the theme of sharing books.

There will be performances and quizzes on Friday as well. The book collection initiative has already rolled through Chennai, Kolkata and Delhi, with 8.50 lakh books collected so far.