Finally, the curtain has drawn on Let’s Laugh! The theme for the Leading Reading Schools of India Awards, 2018.
We hope that it has been as wonderful a journey for you into the realms of laughter and joy as it has been for us. From selecting the books for this year’s theme to the selection of the winners – the journey has been fraught with gut-wrenching decisions as to which books to select and which ones to leave out from the wonderful books available on this theme…. And more difficult--- which children would be the winners. But the good news is that every Child, Author and the team of Young India had a good laugh reading the books and the entries sent in by the kids.

First of all, I would like to thank the schools for their whole-hearted participation. Getting kids to read is a major challenge in these times and our admiration goes out to the school principals, the persons-in-charge and the librarians for taking on this challenge.

To arrive at the reading list, it would not have been possible without the whole-hearted support of the publishers. I would like to take this opportunity to thank each of them here for had it not been for them, we would not have had these rib-tickling books in our hands. So here goes: THANK YOU Tulika Books, Pratham Books, Katha, Hachette, Puffin, Young Zubaan, Scholastic, Duckbill, Karadi Tales, CBT MangoDC and Red Turtle.

Next, I would like to thank the authors for painstakingly assessing the childrens’ submission and penning these amazing stories. They let their imagination loose and so one could not help, smiling, chuckling, laughing and at times whooping gleefully as one flipped through the pages! THANK YOU Natasha Sharma, Rohini Nilekani, Vidya Pradhan, Khyrunnisa A., Rupa Gulab, Shibram Chakraborty (translated by Arunava Sinha from the Bengali version), Geeta Dharmarajan, Sanjana Vijayshankar, Roopa Pai, Priya Kuriyan, Arundhati Venkatesh, Nandini Nayar, Lavanya Karthik, Sayoni Basu, Jerry Pinto, Anushka Ravishankar, Rustom Dadachanji, Nalini Sorenson, Shals Mahajan, Ashok Rajagopalan and Shamim Padamsee.

Accentuating the authors works was the whacky and over-the-top art works by the illustrators. THANK YOU Ashok Rajagopalan, Lavanya Karthik, Shreya Sen, Vinayak Varma, Allen Shaw, Angie and Upesh, Saurabh Pandey, Atanu Roy and Priya Kuriyan.

I would also like to thank Mehdi Maurivard for his continuous support towards the website and for his timely resolution of all our issues, Donna Reen, Nargis Kabani, BilikishTejani, Ravesh and Sandeep of PrintStop Pvt Ltd for their support and Ashok Rajagopalan for designing the awesome certificates.

My grateful thanks to everyone mentioned here without whose help, motivation and encouragement it would not have been possible to bring you new and exciting themes for the Leading Reading Schools of India Awards year after year.